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European Council: 15–16 December 2005

My Lords, will the noble Baroness be kind enough to answer a simple, non-technical question which I have always found difficult to resolve? Everyone says that the CAP should be reformed because it is too expensive and there are excesses and at the same time, the Government are encouraging the enlargement of the EU to include a whole lot of countries from eastern Europe whose agricultures are poor. Will those countries not take advantage of the CAP and their membership of an enlarged Europe to make better their agricultures, and thereby contribute to the very problems and excesses of the CAP? And where will be then, because there will be no resolution of the problem?