Addressing the Royal Show agriculture exhibition at Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire (UK) on 3 July 2005, Commissioner Fischer Boel attacked, without directly naming him, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair for his initiative to re-negotiate the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). "So when voices call for a review before 2013, we are not talking about re-opening a deal from decades ago over which there was a clear lack of consensus at the time. We are talking about ripping up a text, agreed by all, on which the ink is hardly dry," she said, referring to the CAP deal of 2002.
The commissioner pointed out that, due to the costs of enlargement, farmers in the EU would already have received 5% less in EU aid by 2013 - a sum that would rise to 8 to 9% after the accession of Romania and Bulgaria. She linked the CAP commitments to the lack of trust and confidence in the EU: "Breaking promises and making a game out of the livelihood of thousands of farmers and their families is no way to win the trust of sceptical citizens."
Commissioner Fischer Boel outlined how the CAP has changed over the years and accused the media of populism: "'Scrap the CAP' headlines seem to die hard. The CAP - sometimes accused of being an economic dinosaur - is an easy target in some countries when the media feel like throwing a few missiles at the EU. But the CAP has evolved. And it will further evolve."
