It has emerged that EU money from member states is going out of the union to fund a Sheep Technology ‘Centre of Excellence’ in Uruguay which represents “a serious conflict of interest.”
It’s understood the aim of the centre is to improve competitiveness and generate benefits in the sheep category in Uruguay by providing training, technical assistance, and highly innovative products and services.
NFU livestock board chairman Charles Sercombe said: “Uruguay represents one of the major exporters of lamb in South America, it is absolutely unacceptable that the EU should be funding research in other nations that directly compete with our own export industry – it seems to damage the very principle at the heart of the EU, that we should operate as a trading block.
“The Uruguayan sheep sector is already well developed-this is not a case of aiding a disadvantaged nation-and I am personally staggered that during a time of low prices and poor returns for European producers, the EU has taken the decision to spend Member States’ money on making a serious competitor more profitable.
“I think that UK, and European, farmers will demand to know the rationale behind this decision, and why these funds and the research that results, were not better kept within the EU, which possesses nations like the UK, with world leading agricultural research facilities, and for whom exports are an essential part of the sheep industry. At the Civil Dialogue Group this week, these concerns were robustly raised with the Commission, and I hope to be able to report back when we have more detail.”