Fortress Europe in Long-term Perspective Agricultural.pdfVIP

Fortress Europe in Long-term Perspective: Agricultural Protection in the European Community, 1957-2003 Mark Spoerer Abstract: Since its inception, the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has been discussed controversially. Based on data compiled by the OECD and the World Bank which have so far not been used for historical research, we show that the protectionist effects of the CAP between the 1960s and the 1980s were larger than those of its national predecessors. Moreover, there is evidence that already the piecemeal re- forms of the 1980s reduced the level of protection and support in the EU, that is prior to the MacSharry reform of 1992. The history of European integration is usually told as a success story. Countries that used to fight against each other for centuries decided to cooperate politically as well as economically and established supranational institutions. More than half a century after its foundation, the European Union forms an umbrella under which its member states 1 pursue common interests or compete peacefully for resources and markets. At least for the core of the states that joined the European Union before the turn of the century, the very idea that neighbouring states take up arms to resolve conflicts is hardly con- ceivable. By all political standards this is indeed a tremendous success. This historical achievement, however, did not come without cost. As numerous states have to coordinate their decision-making, costly institutions emerged to manage the European Union. The notorious bureaucrats in Brussels, though, cost the Euro- pean taxpayer not more than 0.06 pe