Files
Abstract
Effective protection and the distortion of competition brought about by the C.A.P. - The Common Agricultural Policy protects the European agricultural sector from the fluctuations and competition of the world markets. But the various commodities do not all enjoy the same level of support. Similarly, in spite of the common price principle, guaranteed price levels vary from one country to another for the same products (because of MCA among other factors). It is difficult to devise indicators providing a synthetic view of these distortions particularly since they need to allow for the fact that protection inputs and raw materials tends to penalize the users thereof. A tentative evaluation of the effective protection afforded to pork and poultry meat was made, based on somewhat simplified assumptions : some input substituability and the same input cost structure from one country to another except for feed costs (pork, poultry), where national feed balances were used. Over the period 1972-83, evidence suggests that the Federal Republic of Germany and the Netherlands enjoyed greater protection than France and Denmark, on the one hand because of the effects of the MCA and on the other hand because different countries use different proportions of cereals for animal feed, replacing grains to varying degrees with raw materials wich are not covered by the Common Agricultural Policy.