The Common Agricultural Policy, in 2008, reached its fiftieth birthday. It has been a constant presence in directing resources to the EU agricultural sector, but the means of channelling these resources have changed considerably in that time. This article charts the evolution in the principal policy instruments used and analyses the welfare effects of the major reforms implemented. It also analyses these changes in terms of the institutional context of the principal reform pressures, of international trade obligations and EU budget concerns. Both pressures are linked to the dominant policy instruments adopted initially – price support. The initial institutions, however, meant that whilst trade concerns did not lead to significant CAP reform, budget concerns did. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, however, changes to the institutional context of both trade and budget policies resulted in joint pressures forcing the EU to change fundamentally the way in which it delivered financial resources to farmers. Throughout, however, this process was never one of simple determinism: those same policy instruments established patterns of transfers that created vested interests in the status quo. The CAP must therefore be seen in the light of its institutional context and of endogenous vested interests to the policy.
展开▼
