Member States are locked in a fight over the financing of reforms to the cotton, tobacco, olive oil and hops support regimes. A working party in the Council was split down the middle in January by the question of reduced support, which Spain, Italy and Portugal called a betrayal of the budgetary neutrality principle agreed at the September Farm Council last year. But the net contributing Member States, including the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden and Denmark, want to see greater savings made in thereform. Germany suggested that an annual saving of Euro 500 million would be both justifiable and achievable.
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