Riga  - The Latvian government rushed to justify its decision to join the UK and Sweden in blocking French proposals to reform the EU's Common Agricultural Policy
(CAP) on Friday.

The Baltic state's agriculture ministry dashed out a special release soon after the vote in an effort to explain why it had broken ranks with its neighbours, Estonia and Lithuania, in the important Brussels vote.

France, the largest single recipient of CAP funds, had proposed mild reforms to the policy which critics say would largely keep subsidies to its farmers intact.

CAP is the largest single item of EU expenditure, accounting for nearly 70 billion dollars annually and is due for renewal when current arrangements expire in 2013.

Many Eastern European farmers feel they lose out to farmers in older member states despite introducing more efficient and productive farming methods. Latvia said it was alone in being prepared to be what it called "explicitly negative" about the French proposals.

"Latvia voted against and obstructed the council conclusions prepared by the French presidency concerning the CAP after 2013," the ministry said.

The ministry said that it wanted changes to the distribution of CAP financial resources included in the text.

A ministry spokesman told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that Latvia would be prepared to block future votes as well unless "significant" changes were made to the way CAP operates. (dpa)