This article summarises the forces for change in the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Economic Community and the political limits upon it, together with some recent developments which contribute to their understanding. The emphasis in the paper, as in Community politics, is on budgetary and environmental pressures rather than on issues of efficiency or international trade. The institutions and shibboleths which encourage the conservation of a policy which is in most respects inefficient, inequitable and ineffective are explained, with particular attention to the processes of fixing prices and budgets and the profoundly different objectives of Community member countries.