European Agricultural Policy – where is it going?

To understand where European Agricultural Policy might be going for the first decade of the 21st Century, it is necessary to understand its origins and present state. The history of the Twentieth Century in Europe could be summarised, crudely, as a game of two halves; war followed by the European Union. The history of European agricultural policy in the 20th Century could, equally crudely, be characterised as protection (1880s – 1930), followed by more protection (1930 – 1968), then common protection (1968 – 1992), and currently, slowly declining protection (1992 ). The European Community’s Common Agricultural policy was a necessary accompaniment to a common market , and it was bound to be protectionist given its antecedents in the six founder member states. Economic analysis was successful in predicting the ultimate unsustainability of the 1968 CAP based on commodity price supports. Since 1992 the emphasis of support has switched, away from price support, towards direct payments to farmers. This will be entrenched by the Agenda 2000 proposals which are expected to operate until 2006. It is more difficult to predict the longevity of this policy because it is less obviously economically distortive. Its survival is therefore less a matter of economics than politics. Despite this difficulty, it will be argued, somewhat normatively, that the post agenda 2000 CAP is also not sustainable, and that it will slowly transform itself into a more integrated rural policy.