Meeting EU standards in Eastern Europe: the case of the Hungarian agri-food sector

Abstract

The quality development policy for farm produce in Hungary has a special importance in the domestic and within the wider single market of the European Union (EU). This article examines the Hungarian EU accession and the challenges it is facing in meeting EU standard in farm production and the food chain. Under the single market conditions it is already known how competition will be farce. However, the additional exports of other candidate countries will make these conditions more complicated. Without proper preparation, the Hungarian food producers will lose their market share in the domestic and export markets. The harmonization framework presentation explains the efforts to create a comprehensive system of quality policy measures, and introduced in the Hungarian agri-food sector. The efforts made, by the Public Administration, and by the Hungarian food sector, mainly the larger companies have already accomplished major developments in quality assurance. However, SMS's in the food processing and agriculture sector are not aware in every case and have not introduced modern quality systems and tools, that could increase competitiveness in quality terms.