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.

First published in 1980. From the earliest beginnings of the European Economic Community, it was recognised that a common market for agriculture would be one of the basic prerequisites for workable economic unity. And yet the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) remained a subject of much controversy and debate. The CAP, more than any other element of European policy, was seen to test the true depth of the commitment shown by Community members to the practice as well as the principle of economic integration. Agriculture and the European Community examines the reasons for the existence of the CAP and its format. It outlines the main instruments, price and structural policy, and the changing emphasis between them. It discusses in turn the effects of the CAP on producers’ income levels and on consumer prices; how far it had fulfilled the promises of the Treaty of Rome; the implications of the policy for third country trade; and its place within the Community as a whole. The study argues that, although incomes of Community farmers had improved, this is not simply the result of the CAP, nor was the geographical distribution of benefit in terms of farming income satisfactory. The policy has achieved a degree of success in securing food supplies and stabilising prices but the cost to the consumer has been high. Knowledge of the CAP had become almost essential to any understanding of modern European affairs. Agriculture and the European Community will serve as a straightforward introduction to the policy for students approaching the subject for the first time, especially in departments of Agricultural Economics, European Studies and Political Science.

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

The book describes the context within which the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union has been established, the basic mechanisms of the policy for the main sectors of agricultural production and their adaptation over time in line with changes in the broader world economy; the changes in Eastern Europe, the problems of developing countries and the GATT-WTO Agreement in particular. An introduction by Franz Fischler, European Commissioner with responsibility for Agriculture, sets the scene for Community policy beyond 2000.