International

This week's failure of the negotiations over the World Trade Organisation's free trade agreement is no disaster, according to SP Member of Parliament and development spokesman Ewout Irrgang. “Developing countries were required to give up far too much, to the advantage of the rich countries," Irrgang said. "It is good that they stood their ground."

Albert-Jan Maat, President of the Dutch farmers' union LTO, argues that 'bashing' the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) as the source of inequality and hunger in the world makes little sense.(1) Maat praises the CAP's increasingly open character, but in my opinion things are somewhat more complex than that.