A Continental Casualty : The costly assault on Europe's keystone agriculture pact.(Brief Article)

Not a single case of foot-and-mouth disease has been confirmed on the Continent. Yet the slaughter has already begun. Last week France started killing 50,000 sheep that may, or may not, have come in contact with the virus. Sanitary "national defense" units were mobilized throughout the country to react immediately should a case be detected. In Calais, Eurotunnel officials forced cars arriving from Britain to drive through a disinfectant. In Portugal, British tourists were politely asked to take off their shoes for cleaning. Europe's farmers can be reassured in the short term by these measures, but if foot-and-mouth makes it to the Continent, it would be disastrous. And not just for farmers, but for one of the pillars of European unity: the common agricultural policy or CAP.

Since its creation in 1962, the CAP has managed the European Community's agricultural budget. At Euro 42.8 billion, it's half of the total EU budget. The CAP doles out subsidies and bails out farmers during crises. It has in the past, anyway. Now the effects of mad cow have drained Euro 971 million from CAP reserves. Every percentage-point drop in beef represents an additional Euro 215 million in lost revenues to farmers. "Our pockets are empty," says Gregor Kreuzhuber, spokesman for EU Agriculture Minister Franz Fischler.

Europe's politicians, desperate to protect their own, are going their separate ways. Bucking EU regulations, France last week authorized Euro 215 million to go directly to suffering farmers. In Italy, regional authorities allocated Euro 38 million to farmers last January. Agreements reached in Berlin in 1999 and Nice last December to cap the amount member states pay their farmers are being thrown out the window. "We're in the process of renationalizing our agricultural policies," says ...