Eastern Enlargement of the EU and its Implications for Agriculture and Agricultural Policies

摘要

In 2004 ten Eastern and Southern European countries will join the EU Agriculture and agricultural policy is an important issue in this EU enlargement process, for several reasons. This paper assesses the implications of the enlargement process for agriculture and agricultural policies. In December 2002 a historic agreement on EU enlargement was reached in Copenhagen. In 2004 ten Eastern and Southern European countries will join the EU, making it a union of twenty-five countries. The Eastern enlargement of the EU will take place almost fifteen years after the Berlin Wall fell, which marked the beginning of a vast set of changes throughout the countries of the former Soviet Bloc Reforms and transition have caused tremendous change. Transition has ledto falling incomes and output, but recovery has differed strongly among them, As Fig. 1 illustrates, agricultural output in the Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) declined strongly in the immediate wake of the reforms following institutionaldisruptions, subsidy cuts and price liberalization (Macours & Swinnen, 2000) However, since the mid 1990s output has stabilized and productivity recovered as institutional and economic reforms started to have effects. The CEECs have, by any historical reference, gone through an amazing process of turning theireconomies and institutions around in slightly more than a decade.