1.Concept:
- Common Agricultural Policy (CAP): the system in the EU for establishing common prices for most agricultural products within the European Union, a single fund for price supports, and levies on imports.* The common agricultural policy (CAP) dates back to the early days of European integration, when Member States made a commitment to restructuring and increasing food production, which had been damaged as a result of the Second World War.**
2. Question
Is CAP a barrier to international trade?
A: Clearly, The CAP has been one of the most important pillars of economic integration of European countries and has had important achievements in the development of European rural sector. according to The official Website of the EU, Today, "the CAP still has a pivotal role in the European Union, not just because farmland and forests account for more than 90% of land within the EU, but also because it has become an essential mechanism for facing new challenges in terms of food quality, environmental protection and trade".***
However, in recent years, increased the opponents of this policy because, underdeveloped can not compete on equal terms, mainly because of huge government subsidies for this sector to ensure the acquisition of more and better technology and access to international markets with better prices. On the other hand, access to European market is very expensive due to high tariffs. a clear example of this is the failure of negotiations between the EU and Mercosur (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay) the most important economic bloc in South America, in 2004 mainly due to the lack of agreement on land issues.
The WTO (World Trade Organization), seeks to stablish fairer trade conditions and, for this reason, created The Doha Round, a negotiating agend which pretends the commitment of developed countries to eliminate subsidies to the agricultural sector by 2013 and reduce tariffs on agricultural products.
3. Point of view:
One of the main criticisms that are made to globalization and international trade is the lack of level playing field between developed and underdeveloped countries, because, industrialized countries can get more benefit from the agreements because they have the power to set conditions. this could be the case of the CAP: some sectors of the economy in poor countries may be affected by this policy. for example, at the signing of the FTA between Colombia and the EU, the Colombian dairy sector feels discomfort because they do not have the ability to compete with European products to enter the colombian market with low prices for subsidies.
Therefore, I believe that while the CAP has been an important and successful policy in achieving the goals initially set by the European union, it is necessary that this be reconsidered in order to comply with the agreements of the Doha round. international trade must be fair and beneficial to all parties. As expressed Hoba and Gulati: "Developing countries must make a fundamental shift in their approach in the ongoing Doha Round negotiations. They need to focus less on S&D treatment and more on equal treatment. Industrialized countries will need to be subjected to much more moral and political pressure before they give up their highly distorting agricultural policies".****
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*Oxford dictionary . 2008. Latin. (online). Available at:
** European Union. (2010). Agriculture. [online]:
*** European Union. (2010). Agriculture. [online]:
****Hoda, A and Gulati, A.(June 2008). WTO negotiations on agricultural and developing countries. [Online]: Available at: http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publications/ib48.pdf
-- imagen from: http://europa.eu/pol/agr/index_en.htm
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