EU politics and decision making: the cap and its environmental costs, and systemic change

Abstract

The EC/EU political and decision making system is examined in order to explain its workings and the continuation of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in spite of its environmental costs. The CAP is the most important EC/EU policy and focus of political activity and decision making. It was crucial to the establishment of the EC/EU. Its environmental costs have been substantial, and greater than those which would have eventuated from agricultural modernisation in the absence of the CAP. The decision making system has been mainly intergovernmental in nature, with France and Germany having the greatest influence. The presence of the minority FDP and CSU parties in the governing CDU/CSU/FDP coalition in Germany, and the ability of the FDP to determine or influence which majority party would be in government, have led to German support for the CAP and willingness to meet much of its financial costs. France has supported the CAP because of the marginal and swinging nature of the French farm vote, the presence of the Gaullist RPR in coalition governments, and the net budgetary benefits it earlier obtained through the CAP. In both countries domestic political change can alter the national attitude towards the CAP. The diversity of environmental interests, their lack of focus on the environmental costs of the CAP, the failure of the German 'Greens' to enter national government, and the lack of a strong party organisation elsewhere, greatly limited their effectiveness over the environmental costs of the CAP. The most useful theoretical conceptions of EC/EU decision making are derived from comparative politics, international relations theory, public choice theory, and 'bureaucratic politics' . There are different types of decision making, requiring different explanations. Member state political parties have been key actors in CAP decision making, interest groups have been of much lesser importance. The system involves bargaining over both agricultural and non-agricultural issues, with financial outcomes being a major concern. The CAP and the EU political and decision making system are faced with further considerable prospective change.