Analysis On The Conflicts Between The EU And The UK Under The Common Agricultural Policy

The Common Agricultural Policy(CAP)has always been a core and significant policy of the European Union.It covers not only European agriculture and farmers,but also has a great influence on the European society,national interest,environment protection,rural development,and even the global market.For the last half century,UK agricultural policy has been controlled primarily by the EU via the CAP,and British governments have long expressed a desire to reform the system but are confronted with obstructions and lacked the power to do so.The referendum in 2016 witnessed a sudden transition of the picture.Under this circumstance,this thesis concentrates on the analysis of the problems between Britain agriculture and the CAP and dig into reasons of their incompatibility so as to have a clear understanding of CAP controversy,future development as well as priorities of Britain's agricultural policies.After analysis,this thesis concludes that the conflicts between the EU and the UK under the CAP include the following aspects.1.The unfairness of the UK-CAP budget contribution and distribution.The UK has a small agricultural sector compared with other western EU members.However,the UK contributes more than what it receives in terms of the CAP budget.Even with the rebate,the UK is still the one of the largest net contributors to the CAP budget.There is unfair treatment among the UK and other EEC founding nations in the CAP expenditure,especially when it comes to the average allocations,such as the CAP receipts per person and the average Single Farm Payment(SFP)per hectare.In the early times,the UK government received unfair treatment on its CAP contribution and distribution in the EEC compared with other members and with time goes on,the problem still remains in the EU.The UK rebate is the result of the imbalance between the UK-CAP budget contribution and distribution and the UK rebate has also intensified the conflicts between the EU and the UK under the CAP.2.The CAP's disproportional subsidies towards farmers.Since the CAP regulates that the direct payment to farmers is allocated on the land area,it offers more subsidies to large,intensive farms at the expense of small mixed and family farms.The unreasonable subsidies to large farmers are possible to trigger social unfairness and confidence crisis.The UK governments intend to limit the amount of subsidies for farmers and redistribute some of the subsidies for public good-including improving productivity and environmental enhancement.3.The CAP's market influence on the UK.The UK's joining the CAP contained the acceptance of the market intervention which actually caused food overproduction and sent UK food prices high.The CAP puts burdens on the British public and results in the public paying twice,once as taxpayers and again as food purchasers.British Consumers have to pay higher prices for their good and pay taxes to subsidize the agricultural sector.The UK government supports the "market liberalization" and a free and open trade approach to agricultural policy than what has been implemented under the CAP.4.The CAP's environmental damage to the UK.Under the CAP system,farmers are attracted by the subsidies to produce more agricultural products.Improper farming practices such as intensive farming,the overuse of fertilizers,antibiotics,and pesticides have damaged the UK environment badly.Although the CAP reforms have shown awareness and efforts to fix the problem,the UK governments have higher demands and expectations for environmental care in the agricultural policy.As for reasons of those conflicts,this thesis draws conclusions for their reasons.(1)The historic and political background of the CAP.The CAP was established for the food stability,agricultural development and productivity.However,the original CAP founding countries,France,Germany and Italy are actually the largest CAP subsidy beneficiaries with the strongest and the largest agriculture existence in the EU.The CAP was actually founded to meet the agricultural needs of the main founding countries.So when the UK joined the EEC,it had no choice but to accept the fixed CAP conditions,which failed to consider the UK's agricultural demands and ability.Historic and Political reasons put the UK in a disadvantage and weak position since it joined the CAP.(2)The UK's special national conditions and development strategies in terms of agriculture.The UK government holds different agricultural development views with the CAP.For example,the UK government supports open agricultural trade but the CAP upholds the regional protectionism;the UK government has cared much about the environment but the CAP has hurt the environment unintentionally.(3)The inherent system deficiency of the CAP.Negative consequences such as overproduction,environmental damage,unfair distribution of direct payment to farmers have not only influenced the UK but also other EU members.Those negative impacts originate from the CAP's system deficiency along its development.(4)National interest conflict.A good example is the UK rebate of the CAP budget.It can be explained by the UK's special agricultural situations but can also be considered that despite the unified union,member countries are still fighting to maximize their separate profits and reduce their national losses.What's more,since Brexit is still under negotiation,the UK is faced up with the unique opportunity and challenge to figure out its own agricultural policy.This thesis makes effort to understand British agricultural ambitions,summarize the alternative proposals from stakeholders,academic institutions and governments,business associations and organizations to prepare for the future farming policies inside the UK and trade treaties with the EU,which also offers references and models for agricultural reforms and development for other countries across the world.It is worth to note that there are adequate CAP researches and the UK agricultural analysis separately yet without a complete and general study on the conflicts between the EU and the UK under the CAP.trace reasons ofthese problems,and lay out alternative reform policies for the both.To fill this gap,the author is dedicated to the conflict analysis between the EU and the UK under the CAP based on existing literature and current studies on the CAP and British agriculture development.The findings of this thesis will benefit the society given its focus on the problems between the UK and EU on agricultural policies so as to dig into the controversial and insufficient aspects of the CAP and help to improve them;its considerations of future farming policies for the UK and also other countries which aim to refine its agricultural industry and share similar agricultural situations with the UK.