News & Events

Governments in Europe launched websites in September that reveal the recipients of certain European agricultural subsidies, as part of new regulations for disclosing the recipients of EU funds.

Brazil has asked the World Trade Organization (WTO) to authorize up to US$ 4 billion in sanctions against the United States in retaliation for U.S. cotton subsidies which it claims have hurt the Brazilian cotton industry.

Mexico’s president announced that the country’s fuel subsidies will reach US$ 25 billion in 2008, up from the US$ 19 billion forecasted earlier in the year.

The European Commission has taken aggressive steps in its effort to reign in subsidy corruption in new Member States by cutting off millions of Euros worth of subsidies to Romania and Bulgaria.

The German federal government has defended itself against the charge that it has not been fulfilling its WTO obligations to notify its trade-distorting subsidies. A German parliamentary committee posed a series of questions to the federal government after the FiFo Institute for Public Economics of the University of Cologne and the Global Subsidies Initiative released a report that accused Germany of vastly under reported its subsidies to the WTO.

A Swiss tax exemption for biofuels that meet certain environmental and labour standards, which had been reserved for domestic producers, has been extended to include imports.

As the rise in petroleum prices has led waves of protests by European fishermen seeking increases in government aid to offset the rising cost of diesel, the European Commission last month submitted emergency measures that will increase aid to fishermen under the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy (CFP).

The UK department responsible for agricultural subsidies under the EU’s single payment scheme has come under criticism from a parliamentary committee. Problems with administering the single payments have haunted the Department for Environment and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) since the subsidy scheme was introduced in 2005.

Heeding complaints by the European biodiesel industry, the European Commission (EC) has launched an inquiry into U.S. biodiesel subsidies which are alleged to have resulted in dumping of U.S. biodiesel into the European market. At the centre of the controversy is a Volumetric Blenders Tax Credit adopted by the U.S. in 2004 which grants a tax credit of US$ 1 per gallon - or over US$ 300 per ton - of biodiesel blended in the United States.

Already under pressure due to the ballooning costs of their subsidy policies, many Latin American countries are also threatened by their old nemesis, inflation.