International institutions and domestic policy: assessing the influence of multilateral pressure on the European Union’s agricultural policy

Abstract

International institutions and domestic policy: assessing the influence of multilateral pressure on the European Union's Agricultural Policy There is a debate in international relations on how, when, and why international institutions influence domestic policy. This article contributes to this debate by looking at the influence of the World Trade Organization (WTO) on the European Union's (EU) Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). It shows that the transfer of authority to international institutions may transform an external factor into a permanent influence on domestic policy. The transfer of authority in agriculture to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT-now included in the WTO) in 1994 led to the introduction of a dormant clause on export subsidies in all subsequent EU CAP regulations. This clause provided the legal foundation for the 2015 EU decision to remove export subsidies. Multilateral pressure (i.e., the demands of third countries in GATT/WTO negotiations) is not the only determinant of CAP, but it is important, and its influence is affected by GATT/WTO having authority on agriculture.

The political economy of differentiated integration: The case of common agricultural policy

“…Fourth, international pressure: the European market was the most protectionist in the world, leading to disputes with other large agricultural markets, such as the US, and to a lack of legitimacy towards the less developed world. During the Uruguay round, negotiations in the framework of GATT and WTO pushed the Europeans towards reforming the basic principles of their policy (Roederer-Rynning 2011; Daugbjerg 2017; Daugbjerg and Feindt 2017;Garcia-Duran et al 2018).…”