European Community (EC) agricultural subsidies consist of market support (export refunds, intervention measures, and other expenditures) and structural programs (farm investment aid, aid to young farmers, training, etc.). Export refunds in 1988 accounted for 33 percent of total EC agricultural expenditures with another 55 percent going for intervention measures including storage aids, production aids, processing subsidies, feed subsidies, and income aids. Expenditures for other market support programs (monetary support, other compensation, and depreciation of stocks) represented nearly 8 percent of the agricultural budget while expenditures for structural programs accounted for only 4 percent. The largest share of EC agricultural market support subsidies went to the dairy sector, 21 percent in 1989, followed by meats and eggs, 18 percent, fat and oils, 17 percent, grains, 13 percent, sugar, 8 percent, and fruit and vegetables, 4 percent. There have been significant changes in the shares of the budget devoted to the various commodity sectors since 1980 with the most notable being the sharply reduced share of the budget going to dairy, from 43 percent to 21 percent, and the substantially larger share going to fats and oils, from 6 percent to 17 percent. Dairy accounted for nearly a third of the export subsidies in 1988, followed by grains, 30 percent, sugar, 16 percent, and beef and veal, 9 percent. In terms of intervention expenditures, oils and fats accounted for around 17 percent, followed by dairy, 16 percent, beef and veal, 10 percent, and grains, 8 percent. EC agricultural market support by economic type and by commodity. ARTIFICIAL TRADE BARRIERS Mr. WHITTEN. What artificial trade barriers are in use? Mr. GARDNER. The European Community uses a variety of regulations which they justify on social, economic, or health grounds but which, in fact, are artificial barriers to trade. I will provide both a comprehensive list of EC trade practices prepared by the USDA and a summary of some of the most important of these measures. [The information follows:] |