Analyzing the Common Agricultural Policy as conceptual shifts (1957-2016)

Abstract

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is the oldest and the most expensive communitarian policy in the history of European political integration. It exists since the Treaty of Rome of 1957, and from then on, it has evolved under the operationalization of three central concepts: productivity, competitiveness and sustainability. This paper will observe in which way the operationalization of these concepts serves the purpose of explaining the legislative history of the CAP and its most important stepping stones: the Treaty of Rome, the Mansholt Plan of 1968, the MacSharry Reform of 1992, the Agenda 2000, the Fischler Reform of 2003, the CAP Health Check of 2008, the Lisbon Treaty of 2009, the 2013 CAP reform, and the initial effects of the “Brexit” process.