Reform of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy and Agricultural Policy’s Strategies for Ukraine

Abstract

Talk of Ukraine’s membership in the European Union is often couched in terms of dreams and visions1.Agriculture, all mud and manure, is not necessarily the stuff of dreams and visions. But while Europe is many things - and certainly more than the EU or the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) - in practical terms this CAP is one of the most important, expensive and controversial incarnations of Europe. It is still true that spending on the CAP accounts for roughly one half of the entire EU budget. If the EU’s regional policy expenditures in rural areas are included, this share increases considerably. At the same time, agriculture remains an important sector of the Ukrainian economy, both in terms of its share of GNP and its share of total employment. For these reasons, agriculture and agricultural policy in the EU and Ukraine are likely to play a major role in any attempt to foster Ukraine’s European integration. The central and at times debilitating role that agriculture is playing in the current negotiations between the EU and the potential new members in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) foreshadows what might be expected in analogous negotiations with Ukraine. In the following Section we begin by speculating what impact EU accession would have on Ukraine’s agriculture. Based on this speculation and projections of how EU and Ukrainian agriculture might be expected to develop between now and the date of some future accession, we then consider implications for the design of agricultural policy in Ukraine.