Trends Of Community Expenditure On Common Agriculture Policy, Including The Agri-Environmental Measures

The paper presents the most important events of the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) development, since the time of its enforcement (1958) until the '90s, evolution that reflects the existence of the differences and sometimes of the conflicts resulted along the European integration process. One of the most debated issues was and it is still the one regarding the budget. The budget remains a bone of contention among members of the EU, even though the CAP’s budget is guaranteed until 2013. In fact, it could potentially be reviewed as early as 2008 or 2009 because some states have argued that agriculture consumes too much of the budget. The CAP budget currently comprised 54.7 billion Euros (71.7 billion dollars) per year, of which 40 billion are spent for the first pillar, i.e. mainly direct payments. However, the share of the CAP in the EU budget is regularly decreasing: today it represents 43 percent of the overall budget while in 1984 it represented 70 percent of the overall budget. We considered the development of the CAP should always take into account the principle of sustainable development, with special focus, apart the environmental one, on the social and economic aspects. Agri-environmental measures could be the answer to some problems CAP is nowadays confronted with. These measures provide for payments to farmers in return for a service – that of carrying out agri-environmental commitments that involve more than the application of usual good farming practice. This CAP trend for environmental support which has started in few Member States in the 1980s is also reflected in the 2009 budget draft proposal.