Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) Flashcards
Why was CAP 1963 controversial (4)
Large % of budget
High prices for EU consumers, and
RoW negatively impacted
Original CAP harmed the environment (early 90s, 40% farmland signs of over-fertilisation)
CAP principles (3)
Community preference i.e buy EU food
Free trade (in EEC)
Shared financial responsibility
Main objectives of CAP (5)
Raise productivity (issue as increases S1 and surplus to pay in diagram)
Fair standard of living for workers
Stabilise markets
Assure supplies
Reasonable prices for consumers
Problems in agriculture (2)
Cobwebs theory - time lags e.g if wheat price high now, it takes time to grow, by then price may have dropped
Inelasticity of demand creates price instability - if demand inelastic, a change in supply will lead to larger change in price.
Price support mechanism diagram
Ptarg is the target price (high since area of shortest supply)
Pe is equilibrium price
World price is below
Threshold price (Pth) is target price - transport cost (i.e getting from Germany shortest supply area to Rotterdam the largest port in EU)
Pinv - minimum price of 16; i.e if no one buys, surpluses are bought by the EU (contributed to CAP high budget expenditure)
Aim of a threshold price
Aim is to ensure imports do not flood into the EU
Since world price is only 8, it means now they have to pay 18 since it goes through the Rotterdam port
How to apply and ensure threshold price is applied to world price
Variable levy (VL) (i.e tariff)
Pthreshold - Lowest world price = 10
Intervention price (Pinv )
Minimum price - based on the place with the most supply
(Meet aim of fair prices for farmers)
EU budget: where do they get revenue from
Own resources (most EU pay 2% GDP)
Examples of own sources
Agricultural levies
Customs duties
As EU became more self sufficient replaced with
VAT resources
GNP based
EU revenue breakdown in 2015
Now GNI based contribution 74% of EU revenue
VAT 2nd with 13%
(Little from customs duties now)
CAP % of EU expenditure in 2015
CAP took 40% of EU budget expenditure
Following enlargement, without reform it could’ve increased to 70%
Why was this cost dampened for UK in particular
UK rebate 1984 , given refunds since were main net contributors towards EU.
(Contentious as other countries pay for it
CAP did increase productivity. How much did cereal production increase between 1960 and 1980?
Why was high productivity an issue….
(Use diagrammatic proof to help)
Doubled - 61m tons to 120m tons
B) High productivity increases surpluses, thus CAP expenditure!!!
8% of EU spending on agriculture is fraudulently taken.
Name an example of fraud in CAP
Dizzy pig syndrome
Exporting pigs to UK got subsidy, would sneak pigs back across border, and export again!!
Contributed to high expenditure too
CAP was also inequitable within the EU.
How so for consumers and producers?
High prices - Regressive - hits poor worst
Producers - small farms received 20% CAP funding, large farms got 80%
(Solved in 2014 reform - limited 300k cap per farm, and also reserved 30% for environmentally friendly farms)
How was CAP made even more complex and eval
B) summary of extra issues of CAP considered (4)
Green money - artificial exchange rates to help CAP functioning.
Eval: introduction of euro alleviated this since only one exchange rate
B) So fraud, green money and high productivity, inequitable was also an issue