"CAP reform and enlargement: A German perspective"

The 1992 reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has indicated a turning point at two levels; first, it became clear that the CAP was unable to withstand any longer the corrosive pressures of changing political and economic circumstances. Since the late 1980s the spotlight has swung away from agricultural issues as new policies undermined the CAP's unique position and competed for budgetary resources. Second, there has been a change in the agricultural policies environment of the Federal Republic of Germany which, by underwriting the MacSharry Reform, broke with long traditions, an action contradicting previously held and staunchly defended positions. It is the purpose of this paper to analyse the background of these dramatic changes in an attempt to assess the direction Germany's agricultural policy might take and the implications this might have for agricultural policy in the EU as a whole