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Ministerial perk?

  • 14/09/2005

Ministerial perk? This is a glimpse of another ugly face of European farm subsidies. It was recently revealed that The Netherlands' agriculture minister Cees Veerman received nearly us $233,000 subsidies for his farms in France and The Netherlands in 2004. Veerman has now promised to furnish details of all public payments made to Dutch farmers by early September 2005.

The disclosure was made following requests by Evert Vermeer Foundation (evf), a pro-developing country research institute linked to the Dutch Labor Party, under the freedom of information legislation. "We want to reduce this absurd subsidy system