17.02.2011
Stephan von Cramon-Taubadel, Professor at the University of Göttingen, says that models are like maps: they are never entirely realistic but help us find the way. In the case of the post-2013 CAP, the reform path does not even depend on the traditional models because the main issue is not greater market orientation.
28.01.2011
Jean-Marc Boussard is a former director of the French agricultural research institute INRA and highly experienced in models of agriculture that incorporate uncertainty. Reacting to the recent ‘Guide to the CAP reform politics’, he raises important questions about what economists really know about agriculture and what kind of recommendations they can give with sufficient certainty. Readers are welcome to contribute short comments or longer responses (1-3 pages) in this debate that will be posted on this blog.
27.01.2011
Valentin Zahrnt (ECIPE), 2011.
19.01.2011
On 13 January, Dacian Cioloş gave testimony to the UK Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee on CAP reform. Here is what he said.
13.12.2010
03.12.2010
By Stefan Tangermann, retired OECD director for trade and agriculture and Professor Emeritus, University of Göttingen. He expresses his disappointment with the Commission communication on the post-2013 CAP and thinks about what the Commission could have proposed instead.
30.11.2010
Whereas the Socialist group published a surprisingly reform-oriented position paper in March 2010, the EPP position paper of September 2010 trumps even DG-Agri’s CAP orthodoxy. Already in the past, the EEP has repeatedly condemned the Socialists for betraying European farmers, for instance in dealing with the Doha trade negotiations and the milk fund. But don’t conservative parties stand for low taxes, small government, free trade and market orientation? Don’t conservatives wish to spend more EU money on research and development? And isn’t there a conservative case for preserving landscapes and nature, rather than giving the money away as income support?
30.11.2010
The Ministry of Agriculture (Defra) and the Agricultural Economics Society of the UK organize a joint conference on the Commission proposals for the post-2013 CAP, which will take place in London on 16th December 2010. The program offers high-level political assessments and academic evaluations in several one-hour sessions that should garantee in-depth 'analysis and challenges' (as the subtitle of the conference says).
More information can be found here.
25.11.2010
'The CAP towards 2020: Working Paper on the EC Communication of 18 November 2010', interprets all the elements of the communication - and highlights the ambiguities and open questions. It has been written by Mr Felice ADINOLFI,Mr Jonathan LITTLE and Mr Albert MASSOT (whose summaries of current CAP/budget issues are always recommended reading), from the Policy Department Structural and Cohesion Policies of the European Parliament.
19.11.2010
It is hard to read the Commission’s ‘options’ for the CAP after 2013 without a feeling that there is something rigged about it. The Commission must well know that some of its proposals are non-starters. This concerns especially option 2, the moderate reform scenario. In the leaked version of the communication, the Commission has severly criticized option 3, making clear that this is just a strawman. This implies that the most likely outcome is option 1: to broadly continue the status quo but with some of the details tweaked.