La réforme de la PAC : le débat britannique

The attitudes of several British interest groups to the reform of the CAP are briefly described. These are partly as shown by their parliamentary submissions. British economists support a lowering of support prices and their better linkage with world prices to gain better the great advantages of free trade. This is in part the view of the government but it supports the set-aside of land, provided the burden is equally shared among member countries. Above all the government seeks to lower the exchequer cost of the CAP and to ensure that it does not disadvantage the UK. Thus like all the other groups it opposes modulation. Producers are now coming to accept that the CAP must change but deplore the continuing uncertainty about how it will do so. Their unions prefer supply control to the MacSharry proposals. Environmental groups in the main support neither a policy slanted toward family farms nor land withdrawal. Processing and marketing industries favour free trade but not very forcefully because some profit from the CAP. Upstream industries support the existing CAP more strongly especially insofar as it stimulates production and the intensive use of inputs. The interest groups are most united with respect to the MacSharry proposals in their opposition to modulation and the use of the CAP to maintain the existing agricultural population.