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...

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union has been in a process of reform since the early 1990s. As a result of reforms, agricultural market regulations have become more liberal and direct payments have been introduced which are to a large extent decoupled from production. In...