Which Communautarian policies ? CAP and the European budget for 2013

The European Union’s various community policies have vastly diversified their scope since the 1990s. One must then try to understand their causes and their consequences. From a general perspective, institutional reasons may be found in the dissociation between the economic policy on the one hand and the general monetary policy on the other hand, which strives to be independent since it is based on the European Central Bank. Thus, the institution of an Economic Government for Europe and the Eurogroup is part of this attempt. Moreover, costly sectorial policies have an important impact, as well as the role of the Commission, the Council and the Pluriannual Financial Perspectives, which are limited to about 1 % of the Union’s GIP. More precisely, the CAP’s budget has been limited to the benefit of the budget for cohesion, which is more expanding and less criticised within member States. Since 1992, it has therefore been widely reformed, without reaching unanimity, and still is a source of conflicts between France, the United Kingdom and Germany, for instance. There is no convergence yet on the grounds of CAP for 2013, leading some to fear that it should become an « adjustment variable in the European budget ».

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