FarmSubsidy.org - Country

Farmsubsidy.org conference in Budapest: 26-27 January 2007 31 Oct 2006

posted by Nils Mulvad

Farmsubsidy.org held a two-day conference on transparency in EU farm subsidies in Budapest, Hungary on 26-27 January 2007. The conference brought together current participants in the farmsubsidy.org network and those who would like to get involved in promoting greater transparency in European Union policies, both in agriculture and other areas. There were 50 participants from 15 different countries.

It has been 18 months since the farmsubsidy.org network was founded and in that time a great deal has been achieved. Not only have we obtained and analysed a large amount of data and generated a significant level of media coverage, we can claim at least some of the credit for the new European Transparency Initiative which is currently being debated by EU governments in Brussels. More than 1.2 million data searches have been recorded on the farm subsidy website. Nils Mulvad, co-founder of the network, won the European Voice ‘Journalist of the Year’ Award for 2006.

Speakers included Nils Mulvad and Jack Thurston (co-founders, farmsubsidy.org), Thijs Berman MEP (Chairman of the European Parliament’s Land Use and Food Policy Inter-Group), Brigitte Alfter (Information), Michael Niejahr (DG Agri, European Commission), Sarah Cohen (Washington Post) David Hencke (The Guardian), Pierre Boulanger (Sciences Po), Stefan Magdalinski (co-founder, theyworkforyou.com), Kevin Cahill (author of Who Owns the World and Who Owns Britain).

For detailed information see the conference programme (pdf format).