Cross-section and Spatial Approaches for the Agricultural Contexts in the 27 Countries of the European Union - The Agricultural Economics of the 21st Century - page 19

Chapter 3
Cross-section and Spatial Approaches
for the Agricultural Contexts in the 27
Countries of the European Union

V ´ tor Jo ˜ o Pereira Domingues Martinho

1 Introduction

The European Union began in 1957/1958, through the Treaty of Rome, with the
name European Economic Community and founded by six countries (France,
Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Italy, and the Federal Republic of Germany).
The European Economic Community changed its name to European Union in
1992, through the Maastricht Treaty, and currently has 28 countries. The largest
process of adhesion was in 2004 with the entrance of ten countries from Eastern
Europe.
The entrance into the European Union by several countries had many impacts
upon the domestic economic sectors, namely in those more exposed to international
competition (Asaftei and Parmeter 2010 ).
In this way, the European Union agricultural policies, for example, when
designed should have taken into account the specific contexts of farming production
in each region and country. If not, the expected effects are seldom obtained (Winter
2000 ).
The specifics and impacts, at different levels, of several agricultural productions
are very distinct and these particularities conduct us towards divergent answers as
to the external impact (from internal policies, external pressures, etc.).
For example, the sheep and goat activities contributed to sustainability in many
European countries, but new scenarios can appear with new policies from the
Common Agricultural Policy and with the international developments from the
World Trade Organization (D´rmundsson 2006 ).
The Common Agricultural Policy has suffered many alterations since its crea-
tion, but concerns with the environment and sustainability are a constant in recent
instruments, namely those related with organic farming (Haring 2003 ).