Dr. Madsen Pirie, Adam Smith Institute blog:
Days after the Tsunami struck, the EU imposed crippling tariffs of $4,540 a ton on Thai exports of cumarin, a plant extract widely used in perfume. Fraser Nelson reports in The Business that the move is designed to protect the French company Rhodia, Europe’s only producer of cumarin.
[...]
Michael Bayley, an Oxfam spokesman, described the action as "criminal." Others point to the EU's hypocrisy in offering aid with one hand, while denying them access to its markets with the other. It is a formula which fosters dependence rather than development, and typifies the way in which the EU protects its inefficient producers at the expense of people in developing countries trying to lift themselves out of poverty.
What to add?
Posted by Walter at January 9, 2005 07:38 PM