In Vino... Veritas?

Ross Elliot's picture
Submitted by Ross Elliot on Mon, 2006-06-26 01:08.

At a cost of €2.4 billion—that's 2,400 million—the European Union will pay grape growers to pull out their vines to reduce a glut caused by over-production.

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The EU wants to have a go at "building quality and competitiveness". So what they are going to do is pay growers to rip out one-eighth of their vines. The same vines that the growers were encouraged to plant via the current subsidies.

Hang on. The same bureaucracy that paid growers to produce more is now paying growers to produce less? Yes. Welcome to the clinically insane world of Euro-economics.

One word: waste. Waste not possible in a sane market economy. But Europe doesn't have a sane market economy. It has an economy built on economic welfarism and political pull-peddling.

My guess is that in another few years they'll be putting the subsidies back on to adjust for low production and rising prices...

‹ Britain needs “more millionaires and more bankrupts”. Collectivism Repackaged ›

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Probably quite a bit. But

Ross Elliot's picture
Submitted by Ross Elliot on Mon, 2006-06-26 06:29.

Probably quite a bit. But that would mean Europe's grape growers would have to compete on an equal basis, and that's the last thing they want to do.

Much of the cutie-pie, thatch-roofed, Olde Worlde Euro-culture the chattering classes so adore is a fiction maintained by fiat. The only thing that keeps the EU in the game is the 500 million that live within it's borders, guaranteeing a captive market of sorts.

China & India are flooding the world with cheap, well-made goods. Europe is the least prepared to handle the coming tidal wave.


I wonder how much of this

Marnee's picture
Submitted by Marnee on Mon, 2006-06-26 04:00.

I wonder how much of this glut could be eleviated by removing restrictions to trade with the US. ?


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