The CAP and 1992 : a French point of view

TIRE A PART de : GARDINER W.H. et KELCH D.R. (ed.) (1989). EC 1992: PERSPECTIVES ON AGRICULTURE. Agriculture and Trade Analysis Division, Economie Research Service, U.S. Depart• ent of Agriculture. Staff Report n° AGES 9043.In this paper, we argue that the CAP has already made significant changes over the past few years in response to the new circumstances. But we also point out that some basic problems of European agriculture are still unresolved, and that the supranational nature of the CAP and history constrain the margin of maneuver into narrow bounds.We turn next to the expectations of France from the CAP and its role in the European farm policies. This view is largely critical in that it can be argued that our country has not really played the cards of comparative advantage in the earlier period of the Green Europe. However, there are some tentative explanations for that to have occured, but some changes have now become unavoidable.In the last section, we briefly review the prospects of 1992 and other circumstances, including environmental problems, for the future developments of the CAP