EU subsidy reform: options for achieving change

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511674587.021

20 - EU subsidy reform: options for achieving change

from PART V - Looking forward: how can change take place?

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 May 2010

Teresa Cavero

Edited by

Ricardo Meléndez-Ortiz ,

Christophe Bellmann and

Jonathan Hepburn

Show author details

Ricardo Meléndez-Ortiz: Affiliation:
ICTSD, Geneva, Switzerland
Christophe Bellmann: Affiliation:
ICTSD, Geneva, Switzerland
Jonathan Hepburn: Affiliation:
ICTSD, Geneva, Switzerland

Book contents

Get access

Summary

Introduction

The European Commission initiated, at the end of 2007, a process to review the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) agreed in 2003 and which applies until 2014. These negotiations initiated the debate about the future of the European budget for the agricultural sector after 2014.

The present and future of the CAP cannot properly be understood without an appreciation of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations. The WTO's Uruguay Round was supposed to reduce agricultural subsidies, but the 1994 Agreement on Agriculture nonetheless was sufficiently vague to allow rich countries, including the European Union, to pass reforms that would not end trade-distorting agricultural subsidies and hence would not stop dumping. Furthermore, the 2001 Doha Ministerial Declaration stated that WTO member states were committed to sustainable development, and that future progress in trade liberalisation would take into consideration and address the needs and vulnerabilities of developing countries.

A central problem is the assumption of the “minimally trade distorting” nature of green box measures, which is a very subjective concept. This ambiguity has allowed the European Union and United States, instead of complying with WTO requirements, simply to shift subsidies from the amber and blue boxes and hide them in the green box, allowing them to maintain or even increase the high level of support provided by these countries to agricultural production.

Type: Chapter
Information: Agricultural Subsidies in the WTO Green Box
Ensuring Coherence with Sustainable Development Goals
, pp. 583 - 603

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511674587.021 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

,Action Aid, Caritas, CIDSE et al. joint NGO Briefing Paper (2005), “Green but not clean”.Google Scholar

Bonilla, S. (2007), “El uso en los países desarrollados de los subsidios agrícolas de Caja Verde de la OMC: Los efectos socioeconómicos en los países en desarrollo”, ICTSD Draft.Google Scholar

Brunner, A. and Huyton, H. (2007), “The Environmental Impact of European Union Agricultural Subsidies in the World Trade Organisation Green Box” (draft paper).Google Scholar

Cavero, T. (2007), “For International Justice” in Food Ethics, Vol. 2, Issue 3, autumn, Food Ethics Council, Brighton.Google Scholar

Cooper, T. et al. (2007), “Towards the CAP Health Check and the European Budget Review: The Proposals, Options for Reform, and Issues Pending,” IEEP.Google Scholar

,DEFRA (2007), “UK Climate Change Sustainable Development Indicator: 2007 Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Provisional Figures”, statistical release, http//www.defra.gov.uk/News/2008/080327a.htm.Google Scholar

Dwyer, J. (2005), “Rural Development under the CAP: Significance, Likely Impacts and Modelling Issues”, JRC workshop, Italy, http://www.enarpri.org/Publications/SPNo14.pdf.Google Scholar

Field, H. (1998), “EU Politics, Eastwards Enlargement and CAP Reform”, Griffith University.Google Scholar

Boel M, Fischer. (2007), “The Future of the CAP and Rural Development”, SPEECH/07/533 http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/07/533&format=HTML&aged=1&language=EN&guiLanguage=en.Google Scholar

H, Flessa., Ruser, R., Dorsch, P. et al. (2002), “Integrated Evaluation of Greenhouse Gas Emissions (CO2, CH4, N2O) from Two Farming Systems in Southern Germany” in Agriculture, Ecosystems Environment, Vol. 91, issues 1–3, September, pp. 175–l89.Google Scholar

,Group of developing countries seeking reform of developed country agriculture (2005), Review and Clarification of Green Box Criteria.Google Scholar

Godet, M. (2007), “The Developing World: Reform the CAP Yes, But Dismantle it at Our Peril”, Europe's World, autumn.Google Scholar

Halderman, M. and Nelson, M. (2005), “EU Policy Making: Reform of the CAP and EU Trade in Beef and Dairy with Developing Countries”, PPLPI, http://www.fao.org/ag/againfo/programmes/en/pplpi/docarc/wp18.pdf.Google Scholar

,International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (2007), “Agricultural Subsidies in the WTO ‘Green Box’: An Overview of the Key Issues from a Sustainable Development Viewpoint”, draft background paper.Google Scholar

,Intermón Oxfam (2005), “Goliat contra David”.Google Scholar

Matthews, A. and Gallezot, J. (2006), “The Role of EBA in the Political Economy of CAP Reform”, IIIS Discussion Paper no. 133, April, Institute for International Integration Studies, Dublin, http://www.tcd.ie/iiis/documents/discussion/pdfs/iiisdp133.pdf.CrossRef Google Scholar

,Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (2002), “Agricultural Policies in OECD Countries: A Positive Reform Agenda”.Google Scholar

,Oxfam International (2005), “A Round for Free”.Google Scholar

,Oxfam International (2007), “Biofuelling poverty”.Google Scholar

,Soil Association (2006), “Climate Change and Agriculture”, information sheet.Google Scholar

Swinbank, A. (2007), “The Reform of the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy”, ICTSD Draft.Google Scholar

Terwan, P. and Weijden, W. (2005), “CAP Reform, Rural Development and the Environment, Centre for Agriculture and Environment”, http://www.clm.nl/publicaties/data/623.pdf.Google Scholar

Thurston, J. (2006), “Capping the CAP”, Farmsubsidy.org.Google Scholar

,UK Food Group (2002a), “The CAP doesn't fit”.Google Scholar

,UK Food Group (2002b), “The Common Agricultural Policy: How the CAP Operates, the Key Commodities, Competitors and Markets for the European Union”, Background Briefing 1.Google Scholar

,UK Food Group (2002c), “The Common Agricultural Policy: Options for Reform and their Potential Impact”, Background Briefing 2.Google Scholar