The Common Agricultural Policy and the Environmental Challenge: Instruments, Problems and Opportunities from Different Perspectives

In recent years, the EU's Common Agricultural Policy, together with the agricultural policies applied within Member States and Candidate Countries, have been faced with the growing demands of the public to take account of environmental concerns as well as the conservation of nature and the countryside. One instrument to address these demands is the legal obligation included in the EC Treaty (Maastricht) - Article 6. This obliges the integration of environmental considerations into the definition and implementation of all Community Policies. This legal requirement was taken up by the European Heads of State and Government who, at their Summit in Cardiff in 1998, invited the Agriculture Council to formulate its own strategy for integrating the environment into the CAP. Since then, the Agriculture Council has been working on a "comprehensive strategy". The book gives an overview of the different aspects of and recent discussions on environmental policy integration in the agricultural sector. It also includes views from different actors involved.