IATA has attacked Jacques Chirac in one of the most forthright statements ever made by the international air trade organisation. Criticising the French President”s tax on aviation to help the third world, Giovanni Bisignani (left), IATA's director general and CEO said, "If France is truly interested in solving the problems of developing nations, it should start by eliminating the problems that it creates. The tax is political posturing to divert attention from France's failure to take down trade barriers that limit access to its markets". Bisignani suggested that Europe's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) offers an alternative. France receives E11bn of the E50bn CAP budget. A quarter of this ” E3.3bn ” is consumed by 5% of France's farmers. "CAP does nothing more than subsidise the European farm sector at the expense of developing nations. Diverting even a fraction of France's CAP budget to development assistance would generate much more than the proposed tax. And it would give the developing world a better chance to compete fairly in global markets".
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