AGRICULTURAL POLICY IN EUROPE
| Date | 01 June 2006 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.2006.00016.x |
| Published date | 01 June 2006 |
| Author | Wyn Grant |
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© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2006 Public Administration Vol. 84, No. 2, 2006 (479–515)
AGRICULTURAL POLICY IN EUROPE
Alan Greer
Manchester University Press, 2005, 238 pp., £55 (hb) ISBN: 071906029X
Alan Greer has written a refreshing and original book that challenges the
prevalent conventional wisdom about the European Union Common Agri-
cultural Policy (CAP). His central argument is that the CAP ‘ is increasingly
less common, and second that it is no longer simply about agriculture ’
(p. 202). Greer has a good understanding of the complexities of the CAP
which he is able to explain clearly and authoritatively, only very occasion-
ally descending into the impenetrable jargon that surrounds the policy –
when, for example, he refers to ‘ the supplementary durum wheat premium ’
(p. 177). The analysis is based on a careful and thorough comparison of
policy and its implementation in fi ve member states that differ signifi cantly
in terms of their agricultures and rural structures: France, Greece, Ireland,
The Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Some material is also included
about the most important of the accession states, Poland.
Working within a broadly new institutionalist framework, Greer attempts
to set his analysis of agriculture and rural policy within the wider frame-
work of theories and perspectives on the policy process. However, this is
really more a book about agricultural and rural policy than an attempt to
test and develop theories of the policy process through an analysis of a par-
ticular area of policy.
Greer has a good case to make. Many analysts have overlooked the extent
to which important areas of policy have remained at national level, notably
in the form of tax concessions to farmers, hence the current debate in the UK
about the price of ‘ red diesel ’ and the prevention of its misuse. The 2003 re-
form of the CAP introduced an element of policy re-nationalization with
member states being given some discretion about the extent to which they
decoupled farm subsidies and, more importantly, the basis on which de-
coupled subsidies were calculated. The growing importance of sub-national
governments has meant that different models have been applied in England,
Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The move towards a multi-functional
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