EU proposes to cut farm subsidies, France says unacceptable

The European Commission proposed to reduce farm subsidies and leave more latitude to member states under the bloc’s Common Agriculture Policy (CAP), drawing swift condemnation from France, which called the move “unthinkable”. The CAP proposal comes as part of a bigger, new, multi-year EU budget set to trigger battles among member states over how to fill the funding gap left by Britain’s exit next year.In an effort to cut costs and promote other policies, farmers will see aid shrink in the 2021-2027 period to 365 billion euros ($438 billion), down 5 percent from the current CAP, the Commission said.This would represent a share of less than 30 percent of the total budget of 1.28 trillion euros in inflation-adjusted prices, down from more than 45 percent 20 years earlier.