Agenda 2000 und zukünftige Entwicklungszusammenarbeit der Europäischen Union Öffentliches Interesse vs. private Eigentumsrechte - Wettbewerbsprobleme in der Gaswirtschaft

This economic policy forum is assigned to the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) with a view to the Agenda 2000. Thereby Winfried von Urff discusses the implications of the Agenda 2000 for developing countries. He argues that the implementation of the Agenda proposals would result at most in rather modest price increases on the markets for agricultural products. Therefore there will be no serious impact on developing countries. In the second part of his paper von Urff discusses the future relationship between the EU and the ACP countries. Thereby he analyses the Lomé Convention as a regional agreement that focuses on rural and agricultural development by allocating grants and loans to 70 ACP countries. He argues that the public should pay more attention to this issue.Michael Schmitz analyses the distributive and allocative effects of the reform of the CAP as outlined in the Agenda 2000. In general, he supports the Agenda 2000 initiative by the European Commission, because in his view it continues the 1992 CAP reform by reducing product related subsidies and encouraging farmers to use less intensive production methods. However, on some issues he also criticises the Agenda 2000. For instance, the Commission does not specify how to achieve a stronger efficiency control of its measures. Overall, the Commission fails to clearly commit itself to a market driven CAP. There remain too many interventionist elements.Konrad Hagedorn and Jörg Eggers analyse the environmental effects of the proposed CAP reform. Thereby they focus on the nitrogen problem. They show that the proposals of the Agenda 2000 will not result in a significant reduction of nitrogen as a main source of water pollution. Compensatory payments granted to farmers in order to offset the effects of price reductions might have the desired distributive effects. However, even if they are made conditioned upon fulfilling environmental criteria, they will not achieve the aim of a sustainable agriculture. Therefore they present an alternative model for agricultural production methods that is more likely to have a positive ecological impact.