Agriculture ministers pledge to tackle unequal subsidies

EU agriculture ministers meeting in Brno on Tuesday pledged to tackle the question of unequal subsidies to old and new member states, but made no commitment to speed up the process. Farmers from the EU newcomer states, who joined the block in or after 2004, get lower subsidies than the old members and have been calling for this discrepancy to be removed by 2010, instead of 2013 as planned. The 2013 target date for equal payments was something the newcomers agreed to in accession talks.