The Common Agricultural Policy

Résumé du document

Agriculture, is to date, the economic sector in which the integration of the EU members has gone the farthest. The success of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), is the result of the elaboration of some basic principles aiming to establish a common market. Since the CAP implementation in 1962, the agricultural field has become the one in which the EU has the vastest powers. The CAP is also the most pricy EU policy, as it absorbs 40% of its budget. During the 1990s, the various agricultural crises i.e. the mad-cow disease, the scrapie, the Dioxin Affair, or even water tables pollution, combined with the growing cost of the CAP, have turned the most successful Community policy into the most controversial one. More than fifty years after the Rome treaty, which first raised, although feverishly, the question of a common agriculture, one can wonder why the CAP, originally one of the foundations of European construction, is now having trouble adapting to the new international economic context. In order to know, we will first go through the founding principles of the CAP, as well as the various reforms it has experienced. Then, we will study the CAP's limits, and the challenges it has to face in the future.

Extraits

[...] Low productivity benefits feed stagnation and under competitiveness. Prices are pushed higher by chronicle inflation since decades, by a low profitability of production and by the preparation of Euro. Besides, what those states have to give is less qualitative and adapted to the common norms. It seems difficult for them to compensate with their comparative advantages, furthermore their capacity to directly sustain their farming is weak. In the EU, the reduction of the agricultural employment was the key of modernization since 40 years. [...]

[...] The realization of the agricultural potential of the new entrants demands huge investment and a sophisticated restructuration. The social challenge that the extension of common farmer market to countries from central and oriental Europe represents has not been at the heart of the accession negotiations, focused on financial concerns. From now on, they are depending on the EU-15 ability to agree on a new CAP and to defend it at the WTC. The CAP towards sustainable development to face globalization The primary challenge is to face globalization and notably the competition of emerging countries such as China and Brazil. [...]

[...] In fact agriculture was a major point of concern during negotiations. One month before the Copenhagen summit, the “fifteen” did not agree with the accession of those countries because of the cost of such a process. The result was a real “market place” during which states were arguing and negotiating on litres of milk or kilos of potatoes Poland was the champion to that game, negotiating until the last minute to make sure their heteroclite inventory worth exactly the right price: higher agricultural subventions and end of quotas on milk of tax on tractors Leaders of candidate countries, despite their several financial claims, had to follow the exigencies of the especially their refusal to let them the access to the subventions for production systems for the agriculture in EU. [...]

[...] The liberalization of the agricultural exchanges cannot be profitable to every country. In fact, the countries exporting agricultural products will benefit from liberalization at the expense of the importing countries. We can fear that what happened to the textile industry happens again for agriculture. As for the United States, the agricultural production in Europe is moderated by the existence of preferential regimes, offering less developed countries a privileged access to the European market. The Maurice Island, for instance, exports more easily, notably its sugar, to Europe, whereas it closes its market to Brazil. [...]

[...] Also, in terms of imports, similar rules are established. Finally, the fourth principle is that the CAP must be supported by a financial solidarity, each country financially contributing to the CAP development. We will see later on that this principle will be hard to accept, particularly for the United Kingdom and Margaret Thatcher with her famous sentence: want my money back”. Four years of bargaining will be necessary for the experts' team led by Mansholt (former Dutch agriculture minister) to propose in 1962 a draft project of common agricultural market acceptable by all member states. [...]