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DEFINITION AND INSTRUMENTS OF THE COMMON AGRICULTURAL POLICY
The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is comprised of a set of
rules and mechanisms, which regulate the production, trade and
processing of agricultural products in the European Union (EU),
with attention being focused increasingly on rural development.
Among the European Union's policies, the CAP is regarded as one
of the most important policy areas. Not only because of its share
of the EU budget (almost 50%, decreasing over the years), the
vast number of people and the extent of the territory directly
affected, but also because of its symbolic significance, and the
extent of sovereignty transferred from the national to the European
level. The significance of the CAP, nowadays, is also portrayed
by the fact that it is directly related to the Single Market and
the EMU, two key areas in achieving the European integration.
The objectives of the CAP, as set out in Article 33 of
the EC Treaty, are:
· to increase agricultural productivity by promoting technical
progress and by ensuring the rational development of agricultural
production and the optimum utilisation of the factors of production,
in particular labour;
· to ensure a fair standard of living for the agricultural
community, in particular by increasing the individual earnings
of persons engaged in agriculture;
· to stabilise markets;
· to assure the availability of supplies;
· to ensure that supplies reach consumers at reasonable
prices.
In order to attain these objectives, Article 34 of the EC Treaty
provides for the creation of the common organisation of the
agricultural markets (COM) which, depending on the product,
shall take one of the following forms:
· common rules on competition;
· compulsory co-ordination of the various national market
organisations;
· a European market organisation.
The COMs were introduced gradually and now exist for most EU
agricultural products. They are the basic instruments of the common
agricultural market in as far as they eliminate the obstacles
to the intra-Union trade of agricultural products and maintain
a common customs barrier with respect to third countries.
Three main principles, defined in 1962, characterise the
common agricultural market and thus the COMs:
· a unified market: this denotes the free movement
of agricultural products within the area of the Member States;
for the organisation of the unified market, common means and mechanisms
should be used throughout the EU;
· Community preference: this means that EU agricultural
products are given preference and a price advantage over imported
products; also, the protection of the internal market from products
imported from third countries at low prices and from considerable
fluctuations in the world market;
· financial solidarity: all expenses and spending
which result from the application of the CAP are borne by the
Community budget.
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