Eu’S Impact On Free Trade / Agriculture / Fisheries Agriculture

Research shows that Europe’s problems identified in the 1990s have not been solved up to this date. This includes its Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which manages the subsidies given to farmers in Europe. Several reforms have been made since the 90’s. European institutions failed to develop a framework that promotes environmentally responsible agriculture which also supports small farmers. This policy of the EU favours large businesses over small farmers, which pushed them towards intensive farming practices that damage the environment. This policy also prevented healthy competition wherein they cannot import cheap food from the United States, China, or anywhere in this globalized world that we live in. This also hinders the revolutionizing of a modern agriculture system in the EU. The policy also has been damaging to developing nations’ agricultural exports because of the barriers to European markets.

Another flaw of CAP is in the way the subsidies are given out by the European Commission (countries like Bulgaria). After the 1999 reform, the subsidies were given by the size of the farms which also means that the policy provides benefits to large farms growing cash crops than to smaller farms. This drove the increase in growing cash crops (cereals, oilseeds, etc) whereas the production of fruits and vegetables decreased. The farming also leads to overproduction which produces mountains of surplus which are either destroyed or dumped in developing nations which threatened the livelihoods of farmers there. Farming cash crops leads to unemployment as this require little labour. Imports of fruit and vegetables where it requires intensive human care doubled in value, from €10 billion in 2000 to €23 billion in 2015 mostly from Chile and Morocco. Since 2000, total employment decreased by 6 million full-time equivalents. The several reforms that have been made for CAP since 90’s only proved the ineffectiveness and lengthy process of the decision making of the EU. CAP has been a major stumbling block during trade negotiations between the EU and the rest of the world. The US has retaliated against EU exports in response to the high degree of protection given to agriculture. This also shows that policies such as CAP inhibits the growth of a country wherein they can freely trade and without the EU telling them what they can do.

Fisheries

The Common Fisheries Policy regulates the fishing industry all over the EU wherein there is a total allowable yearly catch for each main species of fish, which is shared among the different member states.For nearly 50 years, the Common Fisheries Policy has dictated where UK fishing boats can operate and how much they can catch. The UK fishing industry has been in relative decline for decades and yet UK vessels cannot catch about 70% of stocks in UK waters because of the CFP’s quota system. Other issues are important too, such as the perceived “top-down” nature of the way that the CFP operates. According to surveys of British fishermen, around 92% of skippers in the UK voted to leave the EU in 2016 and therefore leave the CFP.

Michael Gove, the environment secretary who took an important step in exiting the CFP, mentioned that Britain will now “go further and take back control of its territorial waters up to 200 nautical miles currently allowed by the CFP which will also dramatically increase the amount of fish that we catch”. This will also allow them to develop a fisheries management system that is fitted to the conditions of UK waters and its fleet.The CFP is over centralized wherein bureaucrats such as in Brussels micromanages fishing industries from the Mediterranean and the Arctic without listening to the voices of fishermen who best know what’s going on in their waters. It also allows authorities to favour their own fleets.

CFP’s quota system damages the fishing communities which favours the big business over the small traditional fishermen. A study (Said, Macmillan, & Tzanopoulos, 2018) said that the EU's policy focused too much on fish stock conservation and has no meaningful policy regulations to ensure that quotas for overfished stocks such as tuna are equitably shared amongst fishermen. These policies that were intended to conserve fish stocks have pushed countries such as Malta’s fishermen of their water and their livelihood. These fishermen ends up with mostly nothing but inadequate retirement package and their communities crumbles down.

Fisheries and agricultural regulations in general tend to hurt small businesses and communities and this will eventually lead to increasing pressures on national governments which could potentially lead to nations deciding to follow Britain’s example and leave the EU.