What is the Common Agricultural Policy and why did it need changing?
Under the Common Agricultural Policy, Europe’s farmers receive subsidies of 43bn euros (31bn; $51bn) a year, about half the entire budget of the EU. The EU’s farm support programme was set up in the 1950s. By rewarding farmers for their output, it quickly made Western Europe self-sufficient in food. But these payments skewed the balance of supply and demand, and massive surpluses of cereals and dairy products developed in the 1980s. These food surpluses had to be sold on world markets where prices are much lower than in the EU. Consequently, the EU began to subsidise exporters to sell farm products abroad. Why does that need to change? Agriculture reform has been a modest worry for European policymakers for decades. When 10 mainly poor, mainly rural countries join the EU next year, claims on that budget would become unsustainable, unless some new formula for distributing cash is agreed on. The subsidies are also an embarrassment as the prospect of a new global trade agreement looms in
