One policy, many policies: the spatial allocation of first and second pillar CAP Expenditure

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is the most important EU Policy in terms of total expenditure. Nevertheless, its impact on EU-27 regions is rather uneven: actually, some regions have historically received a larger support than others. Territorial imbalances, however, represent only part of the story. The CAP comprises a wide range of agricultural and rural measures, from agricultural market interventions to agro-environmental payments and rural development measures. Due to their underlying objectives, expenditures from different CAP Pillars are allocated according to different territorial patterns at local level. In this paper, CAP real expenditures for years 2007-2011 are analysed at EU-27 NUTS 3 level, by considering expenditure intensity per hectare of utilised agricultural area (UAA). Several CAP expenditure typologies (Direct Payments, Market Intervention Measures and RDP’s Axes, i.e., Axis 1, Axis 2 and Axis 3) are considered. Their spatial allocation highlights different territorial patterns and suggests the existence of well defined spatial clusters. They seem to be determined by the nature of CAP itself. Indeed, despite being a single EU policy, the heterogeneous nature of its measures and their spatial allocation make the CAP a combination of several territorial policies.