We need to build a kind of United States of Europe” – the words of iconic UK prime minister Winston Churchill in a speech delivered to the University of Zurich in 1946, a year after the war in Europe ended. It may seem strange now, given the UK’s fraught relationship with the EU, but Churchill can claim to be a founding father of the European project.
He was a participant in the first Council of Europe and advocated for a European army and the court of human rights. That court was eventually established in 1959, a decade after Churchill first advocated for it.
Despite Churchill’s proclamation, the UK position on Europe in the 1950s was not dissimilar to what it is today. There was an enthusiastic constituency for being part of the project involving West Germany, France, Italy and the three smaller countries already in a customs union – Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.
On the other hand, the prevailing mood of the decade in the UK was a fear of sovereignty being compromised with centralised institutions into which members devolved powers. Ultimately, British politicians questioned if this would impact national policies that were “common” across all the members.
While the UK was conflicted about active participation in the founding of the European Economic Community (EEC) and so declined the opportunity to participate in 1957, it did become one of the founders of the European Free Trade Association along with Austria, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland.
This parallel institution sought to develop free trade without the supranational institutions of the EEC.
By 1961, the UK decided to apply to be a member of the EEC but this was vetoed by France in 1963, as was a second application in 1967. President de Gaulle’s justification was that the common market was incompatible with the UK-US relationship, its food policy, sterling and trade balance.
The UK and Ireland were eventually accepted as members in 1973, by which time the EEC institutions were well established. This process had begun in 1944 with Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg creating Benelux, a customs union, to remove tariffs on trade between them.
This was followed in 1951 by the European Coal and Steel Community which was made up of the Benelux countries plus West Germany, France and Italy.
This was essentially a common market for coal and steel trade between these countries without tariffs. The political thinking was if no one country controlled trade in these products, the risk of war would be reduced.
The Treaty of Rome in 1957 extended this to all goods traded between the six members.
While the CAP was first established in 1962, its origins can be traced back to the end of World War II.
At that time, there were widespread food shortages across Europe and in particular in the Netherlands.
During this time, Dutch farmer Sicco Mansholt participated in the Dutch resistance against the German occupation and managed a food distribution network.
At the end of the war, the food crisis was at its greatest and Mansholt became Minister for Agriculture.
He set minimum pricing for the most important agricultural produce and promoted research, education and farm mergers into bigger, more efficient units.
Like many of his generation, he was an enthusiastic advocate of common European policy and, in 1950, produced a plan for a common market for agricultural produce.
While it did not gain much traction at the time, this was to be the template for the CAP, which was launched five years after the Treaty of Rome established the EEC.
Mansholt was appointed the first European Commissioner for Agriculture, a post which he held until 1972. The principles of the original CAP are well-known at this stage, a mix of subsidy payments for land and a price support mechanism.
Sicco Mansholt, the first EU Commissioner for Agriculture and the architect of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
The market was protected by import tariffs and quotas on agricultural produce from outside the then six members of the EEC.
At the outset, farmers were sceptical of this huge common market stretching across six countries, fearing that they would be squeezed out.
While it took time, by the end of the 1960s agricultural production and markets in the protected zone were flourishing. By the time Mansholt moved on to become Commission President in 1972, food shortages were becoming a distant memory and the problem of food surpluses was just around the corner.
CAP and Ireland
Irish farmers caught the tail end of the truly expansionary period for agriculture under the CAP.
The original six members of the EEC were joined by Ireland, Denmark and the UK in 1973. Both Ireland and Denmark were large dairy producers and Ireland exported beef, mainly to the UK. While the UK was a net food importer, it brought a huge 228,000t sheepmeat quota from New Zealand with it into the EEC, which greatly increased supply.
While surpluses were a political problem inside the EEC, support for exports was causing a problem on the world stage
By the 1980s, EEC production had grown way beyond what was required and huge resources were being used to support the market both for production of produce and off loading it into international markets. This process was supported by generous export refunds to compensate for lower international prices.
Imposition of milk quotas arrived in Ireland in 1984 before the Irish dairy industry had come close to achieving its potential. Beef and sheep producers were constrained by numbers to maximise headage payments and tillage farmers faced set-aside.
While surpluses were a political problem inside the EEC, support for exports was causing a problem on the world stage. The EEC evolved into the European Union (EU) following the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 and launched the single market in 1993.
The General Agreement for Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was an attempt to encourage global trade through a general reduction of national tariffs and market protection across the world.
The General Agreement for Tariffs and Trade was an attempt to encourage global trade through a general reduction of national tariffs and market protection across the world.
It was pointed out to the EEC that achieving success was impossible while they flooded international markets with food produced using subsidies and then they used export refunds to make it competitive internationally, while the EEC market was protected by tariffs and quotas.
EU reforms
GATT and its successor the World Trade Organisation – under director general, former Commissioner Peter Sutherland – was a major driver of the wave of EU reforms between 1992 and 2005.
These started with Ray MacSharry, who is interviewed on pages 28 and 29.
It was MacSharry who introduced direct farmer payments instead of market supports.
By 2005, they had moved to an area-based single farm payment and rural support with the focus moving away from production to income support and land management.
Making farming
profitable
Six decades after its introduction, there is no denying that the CAP has delivered on its food supply objectives. The policy has been so successful that it is now argued this it is no longer essential, with the environment and reductions in gaseous emissions becoming the priority objectives.
The CAP has contributed significantly to farm incomes but the reality remains that farm incomes in most sectors regularly lag behind the average incomes of wider society.
The return of war in Europe in the year of its sixtieth anniversary and disruption to grain supplies from Ukraine and energy and fertiliser from Russia is a timely reminder that the agri-food supply chain is fragile.
Sicco Mansholt, the first EU Commissioner for Agriculture and the architect of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
Food security
It was this environment that inspired Sicco Mansholt in the aftermath of World War II to develop the blueprint for European food security.
Farmers now need the leadership that can chart a way to make farming profitable and food affordable, while minimising emissions and the impact of food production on the environment.
An over-riding desire to secure peace in Europe following two major wars created the collaborative environment for the formation of the EEC/EU.The need to have a secure food supply for Europe was driven by the near famine experience at end of the war.Mission accomplished by end of second decade.Reforms to reflect changing policy priorities are not always in farmers’ interests.
We need to build a kind of United States of Europe” – the words of iconic UK prime minister Winston Churchill in a speech delivered to the University of Zurich in 1946, a year after the war in Europe ended. It may seem strange now, given the UK’s fraught relationship with the EU, but Churchill can claim to be a founding father of the European project.
He was a participant in the first Council of Europe and advocated for a European army and the court of human rights. That court was eventually established in 1959, a decade after Churchill first advocated for it.
Despite Churchill’s proclamation, the UK position on Europe in the 1950s was not dissimilar to what it is today. There was an enthusiastic constituency for being part of the project involving West Germany, France, Italy and the three smaller countries already in a customs union – Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.
On the other hand, the prevailing mood of the decade in the UK was a fear of sovereignty being compromised with centralised institutions into which members devolved powers. Ultimately, British politicians questioned if this would impact national policies that were “common” across all the members.
While the UK was conflicted about active participation in the founding of the European Economic Community (EEC) and so declined the opportunity to participate in 1957, it did become one of the founders of the European Free Trade Association along with Austria, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland.
This parallel institution sought to develop free trade without the supranational institutions of the EEC.
By 1961, the UK decided to apply to be a member of the EEC but this was vetoed by France in 1963, as was a second application in 1967. President de Gaulle’s justification was that the common market was incompatible with the UK-US relationship, its food policy, sterling and trade balance.
The UK and Ireland were eventually accepted as members in 1973, by which time the EEC institutions were well established. This process had begun in 1944 with Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg creating Benelux, a customs union, to remove tariffs on trade between them.
This was followed in 1951 by the European Coal and Steel Community which was made up of the Benelux countries plus West Germany, France and Italy.
This was essentially a common market for coal and steel trade between these countries without tariffs. The political thinking was if no one country controlled trade in these products, the risk of war would be reduced.
The Treaty of Rome in 1957 extended this to all goods traded between the six members.
While the CAP was first established in 1962, its origins can be traced back to the end of World War II.
At that time, there were widespread food shortages across Europe and in particular in the Netherlands.
During this time, Dutch farmer Sicco Mansholt participated in the Dutch resistance against the German occupation and managed a food distribution network.
At the end of the war, the food crisis was at its greatest and Mansholt became Minister for Agriculture.
He set minimum pricing for the most important agricultural produce and promoted research, education and farm mergers into bigger, more efficient units.
Like many of his generation, he was an enthusiastic advocate of common European policy and, in 1950, produced a plan for a common market for agricultural produce.
While it did not gain much traction at the time, this was to be the template for the CAP, which was launched five years after the Treaty of Rome established the EEC.
Mansholt was appointed the first European Commissioner for Agriculture, a post which he held until 1972. The principles of the original CAP are well-known at this stage, a mix of subsidy payments for land and a price support mechanism.
Sicco Mansholt, the first EU Commissioner for Agriculture and the architect of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
The market was protected by import tariffs and quotas on agricultural produce from outside the then six members of the EEC.
At the outset, farmers were sceptical of this huge common market stretching across six countries, fearing that they would be squeezed out.
While it took time, by the end of the 1960s agricultural production and markets in the protected zone were flourishing. By the time Mansholt moved on to become Commission President in 1972, food shortages were becoming a distant memory and the problem of food surpluses was just around the corner.
CAP and Ireland
Irish farmers caught the tail end of the truly expansionary period for agriculture under the CAP.
The original six members of the EEC were joined by Ireland, Denmark and the UK in 1973. Both Ireland and Denmark were large dairy producers and Ireland exported beef, mainly to the UK. While the UK was a net food importer, it brought a huge 228,000t sheepmeat quota from New Zealand with it into the EEC, which greatly increased supply.
While surpluses were a political problem inside the EEC, support for exports was causing a problem on the world stage
By the 1980s, EEC production had grown way beyond what was required and huge resources were being used to support the market both for production of produce and off loading it into international markets. This process was supported by generous export refunds to compensate for lower international prices.
Imposition of milk quotas arrived in Ireland in 1984 before the Irish dairy industry had come close to achieving its potential. Beef and sheep producers were constrained by numbers to maximise headage payments and tillage farmers faced set-aside.
While surpluses were a political problem inside the EEC, support for exports was causing a problem on the world stage. The EEC evolved into the European Union (EU) following the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 and launched the single market in 1993.
The General Agreement for Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was an attempt to encourage global trade through a general reduction of national tariffs and market protection across the world.
The General Agreement for Tariffs and Trade was an attempt to encourage global trade through a general reduction of national tariffs and market protection across the world.
It was pointed out to the EEC that achieving success was impossible while they flooded international markets with food produced using subsidies and then they used export refunds to make it competitive internationally, while the EEC market was protected by tariffs and quotas.
EU reforms
GATT and its successor the World Trade Organisation – under director general, former Commissioner Peter Sutherland – was a major driver of the wave of EU reforms between 1992 and 2005.
These started with Ray MacSharry, who is interviewed on pages 28 and 29.
It was MacSharry who introduced direct farmer payments instead of market supports.
By 2005, they had moved to an area-based single farm payment and rural support with the focus moving away from production to income support and land management.
Making farming
profitable
Six decades after its introduction, there is no denying that the CAP has delivered on its food supply objectives. The policy has been so successful that it is now argued this it is no longer essential, with the environment and reductions in gaseous emissions becoming the priority objectives.
The CAP has contributed significantly to farm incomes but the reality remains that farm incomes in most sectors regularly lag behind the average incomes of wider society.
The return of war in Europe in the year of its sixtieth anniversary and disruption to grain supplies from Ukraine and energy and fertiliser from Russia is a timely reminder that the agri-food supply chain is fragile.
Sicco Mansholt, the first EU Commissioner for Agriculture and the architect of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
Food security
It was this environment that inspired Sicco Mansholt in the aftermath of World War II to develop the blueprint for European food security.
Farmers now need the leadership that can chart a way to make farming profitable and food affordable, while minimising emissions and the impact of food production on the environment.
An over-riding desire to secure peace in Europe following two major wars created the collaborative environment for the formation of the EEC/EU.The need to have a secure food supply for Europe was driven by the near famine experience at end of the war.Mission accomplished by end of second decade.Reforms to reflect changing policy priorities are not always in farmers’ interests. 
This is a subscriber-only article
SHARING OPTIONS: