Abstract
As one of the European Union’s most longstanding and pervasive policies, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) takes a highly symbolic place in the process of European integration. The Treaty of Rome sets out its objectives and the common organisation of agricultural markets started to take effect from July 1962, six years before the implementation of the customs union in July 1968. In the early 2000s, decisions relating to the Common Agricultural Policy constituted about 50 per cent of the whole acquis communautaire1 and the Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development was one of the largest and most influential Directorate Generals, with over 1000 staff.2 CAP spending accounted for over 70 per cent of the EC budget in the 1970s and still reached 43 per cent during the period under analysis.3 The setting of common prices and quotas imposes heavy constraints on the member states’ agricultural policies, not to mention its impact on international trade cooperation.
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Ruano, L., ‘Institutions, Policy Communities and EU Enlargement: British, Spanish and Central European Accession Negotiations in the Agricultural Sector’, in Schimmelfennig, F., Sedelmeier, U. (eds), The Politics of European Union Enlargement, Theoretical Approaches, Abingdon, Routledge 2005, p. 269.
Ledent, A., Burny, P., La politique agricole commune des origines au 3e millénaire, Grembloux, Presses agronomiques de Grembloux, 2002, p. 19.
Palayret, J. M., Wallace, H., Winand, P. (eds), Visions, Votes and Vetoes: The Empty Chair Crisis and the Luxembourg Compromise 40 Years On, Brussels, Peter Lang 2006.
Olper, A., ‘Constraints and Causes of the 2003 EU Agricultural Reforms’, in Swinnen, J. (ed.), The Perfect Storm: The Political Economy of the Fischler Reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy, Brussels, Centre for European Policy Studies, 2008, p. 85; Grant, W., ‘Global Governance and the Common Agricultural Policy’, in Wunderlich, J.-U., Bailey, D. J. (eds), The European Union and Global Governance, a Handbook, London and New York, Routledge, p. 152.
Delorme, H., ‘La politique agricole du Royaume-Uni: de l’agricole au rural’, in Delorme, H. (ed.), La politique agricole commune, Anatomie d’une transformation, Paris, Presses de Science Po, 2004, p. 74.
Knudsen, A.-C. L., Farmers on Welfare, The Making of Europe’s Common Agricultural Policy, Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press, 2009, p. 304.
Ackrill, R., The Common Agricultural Policy, Sheffield, Sheffield Academic Press, 2000, p. 170; Rickard, S., ‘The CAP: Whence It Came, Where It Should Go’, Institute of Economic Affairs, June 2000, p. 30.
Swinnen, J. (ed.), The Perfect Storm: The Political Economy of the Fischler Reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy, Brussels, Centre for European Policy Studies, 2008; especially chapter by Alessandro Olper, pp. 83, 88.
See for example Lippert, B., Hughes, K., Grabbe, H., Becker, P., British and German Interests in EU Enlargement, Conflict and Cooperation, London, Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2001, p. 90; Lorena Ruano counts among the few authors who point to the commonalities (Ruano, L., ‘Institutions, Policy Communities and EU Enlargement: British, Spanish and Central European Accession Negotiations in the Agricultural Sector’, op. cit., pp. 264–5).
For example following the European Commission’s legislative proposals concerning CAP reform in March 1998, or in February 1999, prior to the Berlin European Council, when 30,000 farmers gathered in the streets of Brussels (Baun, M. J., A Wider Europe, The Process and Politics of European Union Enlargement, Oxford, Rowman & Littelfield, 2000, pp. 146–7, 157; Barry, J., ‘As Ministers Meet on Budget, Brussels Braces for a Mass Demonstration: EU Aims Its Scythe at Farm Subsidies’, International Herald Tribune, 22.2.1999).
Billaud, J.-P., Pinton, F., Bruckmeier, K., Riegert, C., Patrício, T., Valadas da Lima, A., ‘Agricultural Development in the European Context’, in Bruck-meier, K., Ehlert, W. (eds), The Agri-Environmental Policy of the European Union, The Implementation of Agri-Environmental Measures within the Common Agricultural Policy in France, Germany, and Portugal, Frankfurt am Main, Peter Lang, 2002, p. 38.
Billaud, J.-P., Pinton, F., ‘The Agri-environmental Measures in France’, in Bruckmeier, K., Ehlert, W. (eds), The Agri-Environmental Policy of the European Union, op. cit., p. 45; Delorme, H., ‘Les syndicats agricoles français et la répartition des aides publiques: contexte et contenu du débat’, Economie rurale, Vol. 223, pp. 49–54, quoted in Coleman, W. D., Chiasson, C., ‘State Power, Transformative Capacity and Adapting to Globalisation: An Analysis of French Agricultural Policy, 1960–2000’, Journal of European Public Policy, Vol. 9(2), April 2000, p. 173.
Pappi, F., Hennig, C., ‘The Organization of Influence on the EC’s Common Agricultural Policy: A Network Approach’, European Journal of Political Research, Vol. 36, 1999, p. 257.
Public contributions from the EU and the member states less all direct taxes (Knorr, A., Žigová, S., ‘Zukunftsperspektiven der Agrarmarktordnung in der Erweiterten EU’, in Cassel, D., Welfens, P. J. J. (eds), Regionale Integration und Osterweiterung der Europäischen Union, Stuttgart, Lucius & Lucius, 2003, 37
Messerlin, P., Measuring the Costs of Protection in Europe. European Commercial Policy in the 2000s, Washington, Institute for International Economics, 2001, p. 93.
For one of the few discursive approaches to the study of the CAP, see an article by Eve Fouilleux, who, however, focusses on the European Commission’s discursive practices (Fouilleux, E., ‘CAP Reforms and Multilateral Trade Negotiations: Another View on Discourse Efficiency’, West European Politics, Vol. 27(2), March 2004, pp. 235–55).
Knudsen, A.-C. L., Farmers on Welfare, op. cit., pp. 291–2; Perraud, D., ‘La transition des politiques agricoles en Allemagne’, in Delorme, H. (ed.), La politique agricole commune, Anatomie d’une transformation, Paris, Presses de Science Po, 2004, pp. 103, 124.
Potter, C., Tilzey, M., ‘Agricultural Policy Discourses in the European PostFordist Transition: Neoliberalism Neomercantilism and Multifunctionality’, Progress in Human Geography, Vol. 29(5), 2005, pp. 587–9.
Gower, J., ‘EU Enlargement: The Current Agenda’, in Koutrakou, V., Emerson, A. (eds), The European Union and Britain, Debating the Challenges Ahead, Basingstoke, Macmillan, 2000, p. 136.
de Gasquet, O., Comprendre notre agriculture et la PAC, Paris, Vuibert, 2002, p. 175.
This provides some backing to Schröder’s own claims that his relations with Chirac, which had initially, at the time of the Germany Presidency and the Berlin Council been distant, if not icy subsequently improved considerably on most issue areas, and not only in the context of the leaders’ common position on Iraq (Schröder, G., Entscheidungen, Mein Leben in der Politik, Hamburg, Hoffmann und Campe, 2006, p. 242).
Delorme, H., ‘Les dynamiques politiques et symboliques à l’œuvre dans la libéralisation de la PAC’, in Delorme, H. (ed.), La politique agricole commune, Anatomie d’une transformation, Paris, Presses de Science Po, 2004, p. 325.
Moravcsik, A., ‘Preferences and Power in the European Community: A Liberal Intergovernmentalist Approach’, Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 31(4), December 1993, pp. 472–523.
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© 2012 Katrin Milzow
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Milzow, K. (2012). The Common Agricultural Policy: A European Agricultural Model Between Sectoral and ‘National’ Interests?. In: National Interests and European Integration. International Relations and Development Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137271679_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137271679_2
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