The Common Agricultural Policy Yesterday Today And Tomorrow

The CAP has traditionally been at the core of the European Communities and even now consumes half of the European Union's budget. This book emphasizes the long-term link between the CAP and the budget. It examines the aims of the Common Agricultural Policy as set out in the Treaty of Rome and discusses to what extent they have been achieved and whether they are relevant to the 21st century. The factors that have shaped the 1992 and 1999 CAP reforms are outlined, with the latter, in particular, demonstrating the budget's effect on CAP and CAP reforms. The internationalization of CAP with constraints being placed on it by the World Trade Organization is another important factor covered by the book. The 1999 reforms are measured against what may be allowed by the WTO and the demands of EU enlargement. This title is published in conjunction with UACES, the University Association for Contemporary European Studies. UACES web site can be found at www.uaces.org

Originally published in 1984, this book provides an introduction to the history of agriculture in Western Europe, states the case for government intervention and analyses the operation of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) during the late 20th Century. It concludes that the costs of the policy fell heavily on the poorer consumers, food prices were artificially high and surpluses sold at a loss on the world markets. In the light of Britain’s departure from the EU and the EU CAP this book, which also examined the prospects for the future has an enduring relevance.

This book offers a comprehensive analysis of the Common Agricultural Policy which imposes high costs on taxpayers and consumers yet has proved very difficult to reform. Particular emphasis is placed on new developments affecting the shape of the CAP, including the outcome of the GATT Uruguay Round negotiations, Eastern enlargement, and developments in environmental policy. A distinctive feature of the book is the attention given to situating European agriculture within its global context and in relation to the food processing and agricultural supply industries.

The Common Agricultural Policy: Continuity and Change is a major retrospective analysis of the CAP since its inception, set against the background of agricultural policy in Western Europe since the end of the Second World War. The topics covered include the development of the CAP, inparticular the early dominance of the market policy contrary to the original intention; the struggle to introduce a structural policy and its subsequent unsatisfactory record; the uneasy relationship between market policy and trade policy; the question of agricultural incomes; and the broadening ofpolicy horizons since the mid-1980s, particularly to include environmental issues.The book concludes with a discussion of some unresolved issues, including the role and appropriateness of a sectoral policy in today's circumstances.

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is a unique agricultural policy worldwide. For many years, its status as the only common European Community (EC) policy governed by EC institutions put it at the heart of European integration. Today the CAP is not the only common European Union (EU) policy. Even while it remains the sole instance of a regionally integrated agricultural policy, the CAP no longer embodies the same degree of cross-national harmonization of agricultural policy among EC/EU member states that it once did. The CAP has undergone policy reforms in the past two decades and these reforms have spawned a host of questions. What has caused the CAP to reform? How path-breaking are CAP reforms? Are they consistent with founding CAP goals or do they encompass new ideas about agriculture’s place in the economy and society? And what are the consequences of agricultural policy reforms: for European farmers, consumers and taxpayers; for European ‘public goods’ such as environmental sustainability and preservation of rural communities and landscapes; and for third parties outside the EU, including the WTO? This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of European Integration.

Reforming the Common Agricultural Policy presents an unprecedented comparison of three successive major reforms of the CAP. It shows the influence of related issues such as international trade negotiations and budget constraints and demonstrates that factors such as opening of the policy network and feedback were key to accelerating change.

Until about 1970, Western Europe was regarded as the great food-importing region of the world. Over the next 15 years it also became a major food exporter. This study, originally published in 1985, analyses the expansionary policies of individual nations, as well as those of the Community itself, which have helped produce this momentous reversal of Western Europe’s traditional role. The phenomenon in the international food market is reviewed within the context of the economic and political forces responsible for changes in Western European agriculture during the late 20th Century.