Editing Common Agricultural Policy (section)

===Cotton subsidies===
In spite of these declarations, the EU Commission proposed the continuation of cotton subsidies, coupled to production.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/cap-post-2013/communication/com2010-672_en.pdf |title=EN |access-date=23 April 2011}}</ref> The coupling of the subsidy means that they will continue to have significant trade-distorting effect, most notably on West African farmers who are unable to compete with subsidised cotton.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/includes/documents/cm_docs/2010/f/2_ft_cotton_policy_report_2010_loresv2.pdf|title=The great cotton stitch-up|last=Fairtrade Foundation|date=November 2010|access-date=23 November 2010|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101225062712/http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/includes/documents/cm_docs/2010/f/2_ft_cotton_policy_report_2010_loresv2.pdf|archive-date=25 December 2010}}</ref>
The Communication on the future of the CAP does not mention the cotton sector. Nevertheless, the most trade-distorting subsidies to [[cotton production]] have already been eliminated in the 2004 reform. The current EU cotton production corresponds to 1% of global cotton production and its effect on the evolution of world market prices is therefore negligible. On the other hand, the EU is by far the largest provider of development assistance to cotton. In the framework of the EU-Africa Partnership on Cotton<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.coton-acp.org/en/ |title=ACP Cotton |access-date=1 March 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130826215920/http://coton-acp.org/en |archive-date=26 August 2013 |url-status=dead}}</ref> the EU has made available more than €320&nbsp;million. The EU market for cotton is already [[duty-free]] and [[quota-free]] and there are no export subsidies for cotton.