The European Union urgently needs economic reform to rekindle growth and must gradually reduce the share of its budget it spends on farm subsidies, British Prime Minister Tony Blair was quoted by Reuters as saying on Thursday. He told the European Parliament in a speech setting out Britain's priorities for its six-month presidency of the bloc from July 1 that serious progress on structural economic reform would build public support for sensible, rational fiscal policy. "And we need such reform urgently in Europe, if Europe is to grow," Blair said. He insisted he was not seeking to scrap EU farm subsidies overnight but to reduce them gradually after the failure to agree a long-term EU budget last week but, "A modern budget for Europe is not one that, 10 years from now, is still spending 40 percent of its money on the Common Agricultual Policy." --SP 1206 Local Time 0906 GMT
