Down (my) Memory Lane: Has Economic Analysis Impacted CAP Reforms?

Abstract

This article elaborates the role of economic analysis in influencing the reform path of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) between 1992 and 2022 on the basis of publicly available information from a personal career experience in the European Commission. Analyses about the trade distorting impact of the pre‐1992 CAP were dominant in influencing the internal Commission debate before the Uruguay Agreement on Agriculture, and were mostly external from academia and international organisations. Developments leading to the Fischler reform in 2003 led to the broadening of analytical scope to cover the impact of food safety issues on market developments, non‐tariff barriers to trade, or alternative scenarios about an enlarged EU based on the increasing use of internal and external models. Evaluations and Impact Assessments played a major role in assessing options for CAP reforms after 2007, with the increasing role of NGOs and think tanks gradually shifting the analytical and policy focus in identifying CAP weaknesses in its environmental delivery. The new institutional reality of co‐decision complicated the link between analysis and policy decision making. However, though economic analysis is clearly not sufficient, it is still necessary and essential to jointly address the twin challenges of food security and climate change.