The Common Agricultural Policy post-2013: a Pathway to Regional Cohesion?

The EU 2008 Green Paper on Territorial Cohesion identifies the Baltic Sea Region as one of several large and diverse regions in Europe where policy coordination and cooperation could build territorial cohesion to foster sustainable and “harmonious” development. Within the BSR, agriculture is both a major economic sector that has strongly shaped the landscape. It is also the greatest contributor to water pollution from diffuse sources, leaching nutrients into ground and surface water.

This report is part of project Baltic COMPASS, a project funded by the EU Baltic Sea Region Programme that aims to increase the legitimacy of adaptive governance processes in integrated agricultural-environmental policy development and deepen that integration in the Baltic Sea Region. As the European Commission considers proposed reforms to the CAP for 2014 and beyond, this report identifies lessons from the current CAP implementation period (2007-2013), with an emphasis on the BSR as a macro-region of the EU.

The authors’ analysis draws on national-level studies of the implementability of the CAP and its environmental boundary conditions that included extensive consultations with public officials, farmer and advisory organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and research institutes. The goal of this report is to show some of the opportunities and risks that country-level actors may face as they move towards regional cohesion in their national responses to the EU reform.

Download the report (PDF, 4.6MB)

See also the SEI Policy Brief based on this report»

This report was part-financed by the European Union (European Regional Development Fund and European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument). The authors of the report are solely responsible for the contents and conclusions contained in the report.