Agricultural Policy and Policy Processes

Despite the fact that, even after the 2004/07 enlargement, it accounts for only 1.2 per cent of EU GDP and just over 5 per cent of EU employment, agriculture looms large in the life of the EU. It does so for five main reasons. First, the economic impact of agriculture is greater than indicated by the figures just given, for in addition to farming itself there are many industries that are closely linked to agriculture and are dependent on its success. These industries include agro-chemicals and fertilisers, agricultural equipment, food processing, veterinary medicines, and financial services. Second, the EU has, via the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), major policy-making and decision-making responsibilities for agriculture. Indeed, agriculture is the most integrated of the EU’s sectoral policies. Third, as a major recipient of EU funds — accounting for over two-fifths of total annual budgetary expenditure — agriculture is central to EU budgetary deliberations. Fourth, there is a greater institutional presence and activity in the agricultural field than in any other: the Agriculture Ministers normally meet more frequently than the ministers of all other Councils except for the Foreign and Ecofin Ministers; Agriculture Council meetings are prepared not by COREPER but by a special body, the Special Committee on Agriculture (SCA); the Agriculture Directorate General is the second largest of the Commission’s DGs (only Personnel and Administration is larger and that does not deal with a policy sector); and there are far more Council working parties and Commission management and advisory committees in the sphere of agriculture than in any other single policy area. Fifth, agriculture is the most controversial of the EU’s policies, with the member states disagreeing on many issues, most notably the extent to which and the ways in which the sector should be protected.