Suchergebnisse

The Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union (CAP) has a long tradition. After World War II, agricultural and food production in Europe was substantially weakened and unable to provide sufficient food for the domestic population. The CAP emerged from this situation, with the objectives of increasing agricultural productivity and thereby ensuring the standard of living of the population engaged in agriculture, as well as stabilizing markets and ensuring a supply of food for the population at reasonable prices. With substantial market interventions, effective external protection as well as a considerable financial effort, the EU has thereby promoted a structural change in European agriculture. The various measures ultimately led to overproduction, negative effects on other countries, especially developing countries with little domestic support, and an explosion of the budget for the CAP. The Uruguay Round resulted in the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) in 1994 which can be seen as a significant step in reducing market-distorting mechanisms in agricultural and trade policies. Although the CAP's support for domestic agriculture has been adjusted in a series of successive reforms in line with the requirements of the AoA, several mechanisms are still in place today that are in fact incompatible with the AoA. This thesis examines the effects of these mechanisms on agricultural markets at home and abroad and helps to gain an understanding of the harmful effects of market interventions and to quantify them. It consists of two essays, each addressing a component of the overarching question. The first paper, "Effects of variable EU import levies on corn price volatility", analyzes the effects of the EU's variable import levy for corn imports on corn price volatility in the EU and Argentina, a large exporter of corn. Using a multivariate asymmetric GARCH model, we quantify the effect of the levy on volatility. Consistent with theoretical expectations from the literature, the results show that the variable import levy reduces corn price volatility in the EU and increases it in Argentina to the exact same extent. It therefore confirms the theoretical assumption that price insulating instruments, such as variable tariffs, are not able to prevent price volatility, but shift it abroad. In the second article of this dissertation, "Price formation in the European sugar market", we analyze the price transmission processes on the EU sugar market. Despite an ongoing liberalization of agricultural trade in numerous agricultural commodities and the reduction of market distorting interventions by the CAP, the sugar market is still affected by market interventions to a large extent. In addition to a protective import tariff and a complex system of preferential trade agreements and tariff rate quotas, the sugar market is characterized by partially coupled direct payments and oligopolistic market structures among sugar producers. Until 2017, there was also a production quota in place. Presumably, this had a considerable effect on market integration with the world market and thus on price transmission processes. We have therefore used an asymmetric price transmission model in error correction form to estimate the dynamics that arise in the relationship between the reported factory price for white sugar in the EU on the one hand and the world market price, the ACP import price and the EU spot market price on the other. The results show that the EU price is decoupled to a large extent from the world market price and that movements in the world market price affect the reported factory price in the EU only into one direction. This is explained by effective price insulation through EU market intervention and by market power among sugar producers. Based on these contributions, we draw several conclusions. First, studies have shown that the EU still partially ignores effects in countries outside the EU when supporting domestic agriculture - although distortions have been substantially reduced since the AoA. However, nearly 30 years after the completion of the AoA, we can reaffirm the importance of consistently implementing and pursuing commitments to reduce market-distorting policy instruments. The effects of domestic market interventions can still reach far beyond national borders. It should therefore be acknowledged by policy makers that a well functioning global trade with agricultural and food commodities is essential to achieve market stability in a global context and to buffer shocks to regional supply and demand. ; 2021-08-23

In the EU, the 2017/18 sugar marketing year (MY) was the first with no production quota and most of the price support gone. The Uruguay round restrictions on sugar exports were also not binding anymore, making the EU a net exporter. In MY2018/19 the EU turned back into a net importer as domestic sugar production fell. Developments on the demand side have been much less dramatic as global sugar consumption kept growing. These market and policy trends lead to relatively low international prices between 2018 and 2020 before trending upwards in 2021. These low prices were at least partially transmitted to European markets. In a net-export situation and without export restitutions, international export prices would be the anchor for intra-EU price formation. Under these circumstances, the still present interventionist side of the EU's sugar market policy could easily be viewed as irrelevant for price formation within the EU. However, in the more realistic scenario of the EU being a net-importer, price formation will continue to be strongly affected by the existing import restricting policies. There has been no change in the EU schedule of bound tariffs for sugar since the formation of the World Trade Organisation. Other external sugar market policies of the EU are unilateral market access to the common market (i.e., EPA, EBA), tariff rate quotas (e.g., the Balkan and CXL preferences) and preferences granted under bilateral agreements. This report assesses how effective the EU trade policies regarding sugar have been for EU sugar imports and sugar prices within the EU, followed by resulting policy recommendations. [.] ; A study commissioned and partially funded by CIUS - The Association of European Sugar Users (cius.org).

As part of a 'fitness check' evaluation of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), completed in autumn 2017, we conducted an in depth literature review to evaluate both direct and indirect effects of the CAP on biodiversity (BD) and ecosystem services (ESS). Beyond instruments that are designated towards the protection of BD and ESS, such as agri-environment(-climate) schemes (AECM), greening, and cross compliance (CC), we considered and evaluated non-designated instruments such as Direct Payments, that likely have indirect effects on BD and ESS by affecting land-use changes, farm structure and management. Although literature suggests that AECM can be locally effective (1), their effectiveness at the EU level remains limited due to a restricted budget and extent, low uptake and acceptance by farmers, lack of spatial design, and poor implementation in many cases. Greening measures are both ineffective and cost-inefficient since most farmers are either exempt or can comply with the greening requirements without any action (2). Additionally, administrative requirements bias farmers toward choosing the simplest and least effective measures (3) and management requirements and spatial design are lacking. With respect to supporting farming systems that can be considered as sustainable, our review indicates that the CAP offers adequate support to promote organic farming, but much greater support is given to unsustainable farming systems. Moreover, the protection of High Nature Value farming systems is scarce and inadequate. Concerning ESS, current measures (AECM, CC) are somewhat effective with respect to soil protection and water quality but the performance of the CAP is very low with regard to climate issues by failing to address the most important sources of greenhouse-gas emissions, namely livestock production and nitrogen fertilization. Overall, the CAP's design and implementation poorly takes up existing knowledge and experience with respect to necessary interventions and best indicators, and its various instruments operate with little coherence (e.g. AECM and organic farming) or even in conflict (e.g. AECM and greening). Moreover, the CAP only marginally addresses the EU's global ecological footprint and its contribution to land-use changes outside of Europe. Thus, the global efficiency and effectiveness of the CAP in terms of BD and ESS remains weak. Our literature review indicates the availability of a wealth of evidence to inform current and future policy design processes. Integration of all available knowledge, in collaboration with the scientific community, will be essential for achieving higher effectiveness, efficiency, and coherence within instruments and among the CAP and the EU's biodiversity strategy. A much more inclusive, transparent and evidence-based process will be necessary if the European Commission wishes to address the concerns over the CAP's performance with respect to public goods. ; peerReviewed