The Folly of European Union Policy Transfer: Why the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) Does Not Fit Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

G orton M., H ubbard C. and H ubbard L. The folly of European Union policy transfer: why the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) does not fit Central and Eastern Europe, Regional Studies . This paper assesses the appropriateness of the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for meeting rural development challenges in the New Member States (NMS). It argues that while the mitigation of structural problems confronting rural areas in these countries is critical to meeting the challenge of effectively integrating Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) into the European Union, the CAP is poorly suited to this task. Overall, the CAP was insufficiently reformed to accommodate CEE accession effectively and it represents a failure of the European Union to adjust adequately from an exclusively Western European institution into an appropriate pan-European organization.

A holistic approach to studying social-ecological systems and its application to southern Transylvania

“…The collapse of Romania's communist regime in 1989, in combination with the general breakdown of socialism in Eastern Europe, led to a substantial reorganization of institutions, economies, and societies, with far-reaching social-ecological consequences, including mass emigration (especially of ethnic Saxons, but also Romanians), farmland abandonment, and changing land-use patterns stemming from the privatization of land (Ioffe et al 2004, Lerman et al 2004, Rozelle and Swinnen 2004, Kuemmerle et al 2009, Baumann et al 2011. Moreover, Romania's 2007 accession to the European Union (EU), as well as ongoing globalization, continue to alter the socioeconomic and institutional fabric of http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol19/iss4/art32/ the region, threatening both social and natural capital (Dobre 2009, Gorton et al 2009, Mikulcak et al 2013. Navigating the rapid and fundamental changes taking place in southern Transylvania poses major challenges to local stakeholders and provides both risks and opportunities for sustainable development (Fischer et al 2012b).…”

Integrating rural development and biodiversity conservation in Central Romania

“…Contrary to the EU-15 member states, the agricultural sector in Romania is largely dominated by subsistence and semisubsistence farming (Davidova et al 2012), resulting in part * Correspondence: Friederike Mikulcak e-mail: mikulcak@ leuphana.de from a profound land restitution process after the collapse of communism in 1989 (Stringer et al 2009;Vidican 2009). At the time of Romania's accession to the EU, more than 2.5 million people were employed in agriculture, with the average working farm area being only 3.2 ha (Gorton et al 2009). Subsistence and semi-subsistence farming is characterized by low-intensity management practices, such as small-scale cultivation, extensive livestock grazing, and the maintenance of traditionally managed hay meadows and grasslands.…”

“…The Habitats Directive, in particular, interacts horizontally with the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) (see Paavola et al 2009). The CAP accounts for approximately 42% of EU expenditure in [2007][2008][2009][2010][2011][2012][2013] and makes up the largest constituent of EU funding, whereby direct payments to farmers (Pillar I) constitute the biggest share of CAP measures (Gorton et al 2009). The introduction of the Rural Development Regulation as a 'second pillar' to the CAP in 2000 created a broader rural agenda aiming to support public good provision (Hubbard & Gorton 2011).…”

Romanian farm support: has European Union membership made a difference?

“…Accession to the EU meant not only meeting the "commitments to democracy and a market economy" but also a "successful adjustment of administrative structures to ensure the harmonious operation of EU policies" (Gorton et al, 2011(Gorton et al, , pp.1306(Gorton et al, -1307. This was particularly important in the context of the adoption of the CAP.…”