Farm spending in EU not too high: Commissioner

(VIENNA) - EU Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Ciolos rubbished calls Thursday to lower farm spending in the face of the current debt crisis, insisting it was already low enough.

"Less than 1.0 percent of GDP for agriculture, common and national budgets included: I don't think that it's a very high level of expenditure for all these objectives," he told journalists.

Spending on agriculture contributed to protecting the environment, he insisted.

"If the management of water and soil is important for the EU, if the deal with climate change is important, if maintaining economic activity and agriculture in all the territories of the EU to have food safety is important... we have to support financially these objectives," he said.

Britain's agriculture minister Caroline Spelman recently called for a "radical" reform of the European Union's farm policy, given the debt crisis affecting the bloc.

The EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which provides billions of euros in subsidies for food production and accounts for around 40 percent of total spending by the bloc, is a major source of tension.

Britain has long called for a cut in EU farm spending to free up funds for other areas but Ciolos warned that this would only fall back on national governments.

"A reduction of the common budget for agriculture will mean more pressure on the national budgets," he said.

In terms of CAP reform however, Ciolos said he favoured a fairer distribution of payments, as urged by some new EU states like Poland, who feel disadvantaged by the way payments are handed out based on traditional production criteria.

"I think that we have to have more equity in the distribution of direct payment," said Ciolos.

He warned however: "Equity doesn't mean equality."