EX-ANTE INTEGRATED ASSESSMENT OF THE ECONOMIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE OF AGRICULTURE: THE CASE OF ROMANIA’S ACCESSION TO EU'S COMMON AGRICULTURAL POLICY ∗ SERBAN SCRIECIU∗

Joining the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union will undoubtedly have important consequences for the economic and environmental development of Romania’s rural areas. However, the economic benefits that the CAP would bring to new entrants would ultimately depend on the conditions and settings under which the next candidate countries are to finally join the policy. In addition, the changes in agricultural production patterns brought about by further efforts to increase efficiency and by the process of joining the CAP will have both positive and negative environmental effects. Yet again, the net environmental effects are to be determined by the production methods supported by the national government and the EU through its CAP, and also by the environmental institutional and regulatory framework in place at the moment of accession. Hence, the paper attempts to undertake a systematic integrated assessment of the long-term economic and environmental implications of the country’s accession to the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy. The research argues that if the main structural constraints existent in the agrarian sector were to be corrected until the moment of accession, EU and CAP integration is predicted to bring overall economic benefits to agricultural producers. These are likely to exert an overall increasing pressure on the rural natural resource base. The growth, industrialisation, modernisation, market concentration and intensification of agriculture accelerated by the country’s accession to the CAP may pose environmental threats in terms of an increase in chemical input usage in arable cropping and a rise in animal density in ruminant livestock farming. However, the transfer of the CAP regulatory framework entailing a greater consideration of environmental issues may substantially mitigate potential negative effects and enhance positive outcomes. This will depend upon the extent to which adequate regulatory measures are adopted and supported by both the CAP and the institutions and people at home