Impregnable Citadel or Leaning Tower? Europe's Common Agricultural Policy at Forty

This article takes stock of Europe's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), the single largest common policy in today's European Union. Change and continuity are examined in light of past political pacts and the upcoming enlargement of the Union to ten new European countries. Two iron pacts—between France and Germany, and between national governments and their respective farm constituencies—have cast a long shadow over European farm policy. The article shows how consumer groups, proponents of agricultural trade liberalization, and the enlargement process have affected these pacts and opened avenues for reform. While reform will continue to be incremental in the medium term, two trajectories of change are discernible in the long term: a "great carve up" scenario, where the CAP will progressively be dismantled as a policy and institution, or a "save the CAP by reforming it" scenario, where the CAP will remain in existence, but rebuilt on different principles.