Resources

On 14th October, farmsubsidy.org posted the launch of Fields of Gold: Lifting the Veil on Europe’s Farm Subsidies. The 20-minute film tells the story of the successful campaign that brought together journalists, NGOs and computer programmers in the struggle for increased transparency about European farm subsidies.

On 3rd September, the Global Trade Alert (GTA) website was launched in Brussels – set up to monitor government spending in the economic downturn and how it may discriminate against foreign commerce. The site, coordinated by the Center for Economic Policy Research, not only monitors state interventions but also identifies which trading partners they are likely to harm.

The Cato Institute has launched a new website, ‘downsizing the federal government’.

Governments spend staggering sums of money subsidizing energy—in particular fossil fuels, but increasingly also other forms of energy such as renewables.  The latest global assessment, published last year by the International Energy Agency, puts the total energy subsidy at far more than US$300 billion annually.

Slipping through the net: How EU countries evade new budget-transparency rules. Some European Union countries are failing to provide clear information to citizens on fisheries subsidies, according to a report by Fishsubsidy.org.

A study released by the Helsinki-based Pellervo Economic Research Institute finds that a world-wide removal of export subsidies in the dairy sector would have the expected outcome of increasing producer prices and decreasing exports.

The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) is conducting a study on fossil fuel subsidies as part of its Global Subsidies Initiative (GSI). The GSI is dedicated to research and awareness building on government subsidies and their impacts on sustainable development.