The CAP's Impact on Agriculture and Food Demand in Central European Countries after EU Accession: Who Will Lose and Who Will Gain?

The population of Central European countries (CECs) is becoming less enthusiastic about European Union (EU) accession than was the case immediately after the fall of the Iron Curtain. It is feared that consumers will have to pay higher food prices. National agricultural policies of most CECs are less protective than the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Its implementation is therefore expected to lead to adjustments in farm production, farm incomes and consumer welfare. Farmers in CECs are concerned about growing competition from Western Europe. The 'Central and Eastern European Countries Agricultural Simulation Model' (CEEC-ASIM) (Frohberg et al., 1997) is used to assess these impacts for Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Estonia and Slovenia (CEC-I), the potential first-wave accession countries. In this paper a scenario of EU accession under full application of the EU market regulations is compared with one of unchanged national agricultural policies