Concluding Remarks

This chapter formulates some judgements about the CAP from its beginnings to the present day. These are summarised around three key concepts: Durability, Invariance and Exceptionality. Durability refers to the CAP’s chameleon-like ability to survive by maintaining its place in the European Union’s budget while shrinking and adapting. Invariance lies in its ability to maintain some basic characteristics: a short-term policy, an individualistic approach to intervention and a support to the rent to the detriment of profit and entrepreneurship. The exceptionality of the CAP lies in its detachment from other Community policies, pursued by sectoral lobbies. However, the links between agriculture and general interests are important and would require an open, cross-sectoral and interdisciplinary vision. The history of the CAP is also a reference point for a judgement on the functioning of the EU as a whole, as it has been important throughout the history of the Union. It shows the limits of an integration project conditioned by the right of veto, the absence of a budget based on own resources and the lack of real legislative power of the European Parliament and a truly autonomous government vis-à-vis the individual national governments. There is a need to redesign CAP payments to support farmers’ incomes and environmental sustainability, encourage innovation and link payments to ecosystem services, in the context of ongoing political resistance and changes in EU political dynamics. External pressures such as geopolitical shifts, increased military spending, crises such as Covid-19 and the wars, and climate change require a radical CAP reform focused on resilience, diversification and sustainability to align agricultural policy with the EU’s broader objectives.