Tassos Haniotis

• International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis

This article elaborates the role of economic analysis in influencing the reform path of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) between 1992 and 2022 on the basis of publicly available information from a personal career experience in the European Commission. Analyses about the trade distorting impact of the pre‐1992 CAP were dominant in influencing th...

Exuberant expectations about what EU agriculture can and should deliver in policy areas beyond its scope often contrast sharply with both farm realities and contradictions in the behaviour of individuals as citizens and consumers. This has polarised the CAP policy debate, and erroneously pushes for a choice between prioritising either climate actio...

The response of the global food system to the Covid‐19 crisis demonstrated not just its capacity to prevent a health crisis turning into a food crisis, but also highlighted deep divisions around the manner in which food security and climate action interact. The global food system has genuine shortcomings which are part of a much broader, complex pi...

Opinion paper: Beef, climate change and a slice of common sense - T. Haniotis

Responses given so far in the public policy debate to address the causes of agricultural price movements and their relevance for the debate on food security differ widely, centring around three fundamental policy problems that have emerged from the food security/price volatility debate. These attempt to merge often conflicting demands on issues rel...

After 2005, commodity prices experienced their longest and broadest boom since World War II. Agricultural prices have now come down considerably since their 2011 peak, but are still 40% higher in real terms than their 2000 lows. This paper briefly addresses the main arguments on the causes of the agricultural price cycle. It broadens the scope of a...

Executive Summary The main resources for global food production (land, soil, water, biodiversity, some nutrient elements) are finite and some even scarce. Moreover wasting resources is often harmful to society and the environment. The pressure on our natural resources is large, and at risk of increasing in the coming decades due to the projected in...

The “Health Check” of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reforms addressed three policy questions aimed at assessing the implementation of the reforms: how to simplify and render more efficient the system of direct payments; how to best grasp market opportunities; and how to meet new challenges, especially those linked to the effects of climate c...

The 2006-08 commodity price boom was one of the longest and broadest of the post-World War II period. Apart from strong and sustained economic growth, the recent boom was fueled by numerous factors, including low past investment in extractive commodities, weak dollar, fiscal expansion, and lax monetary policy in many countries, and investment fund...

The Midterm Review and the New Challenges for EU Agriculture The Brussels Summit agreement of October 2002 on the financing of the CAP opens the way for a final agreement on enlargement and defines the level of the agricultural budget for the next financial perspective. Answering the how much question allows the debate to focus on the how question...

This chapter explores the underlying causes of EU and US differences in the area of agricultural biotechnology. Considering agricultural biotechnology as a further step in the never-ending process of innovations aimed at improving food supply, it explains how the opportunities and risks of agricultural biotechnology weigh differently today in the E...

There are a large number of issues that need to be clarified across the European Union (EU) and United States (US) on policies affecting agricultural production and food safety. While both the US and EU aim to meet similar objectives, their regulatory approaches often differ. The US focuses on regulating the end product, the EU has the tendency to...

The failure of the Seattle Ministerial to launch a new Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations raised a series of essential questions concerning the future of the World Trade Organization (WTO). This is only natural, considering the expectations that were raised before the Ministerial, the unprecedented extent of public discontent (albeit of vario...

This paper utilizes the framework of an Armington model to analyze the impact of the European Community enlargement on U.S. corn and soybean exports. Results indicate that the enlargement has a significant and negative impact on U.S. corn exports to the new EC members. Increases in U.S. soybean exports are much smaller in volume terms. Declines in...

In this analysis, trade in wheat, corn, and other coarse grain markets is modeled as a dynamic game where policy interactions across markets are allowed. The world is decomposed into eight regions, six of which are active players in the game. Results indicate that, when across commodity market effects are explicitly incorporated, optimal subsidies...

The demand for and supply of U.S. wheat, corn, and soybean exports is specified in a dynamic framework. Obtained results indicate differences in the export behavior of each product. U.S. corn exports are elastic, while U.S. soybean exports exhibit an inelastic response. For wheat, the derived elasticity of export demand had a positive sign. Hypothe...

Summary A model differentiating products by origin was utilised to evaluate the potential impact that the imposition of a tax on oilseed crushing would have on U.S. soya-bean exports to the enlarged EC. Simulation of the enlargement results in a significant increase of U.S. and total soyabean exports to the new EC members, but the imposition of an...

Enlargement of the European Community (EC), recent reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), and structural policy changes in the Community have generated economic conditions whose combined long-term effect will be a decrease in the demand for US agricultural exports to the EC. Factors such as the imposition of quotas for milk production and...

Enlargement of the European Community (EC), recent reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), and structural policy changes in the Community have generated economic conditions whose combined long‐term effect will be a decrease in the demand for US agricultural exports to the EC. Factors such as the imposition of quotas for milk production and...

September 2003 saw trade talks pursuing the Doha Development Agenda at the Cancún WTO Ministerial Meeting collapse, primarily over the disagreements between rich and developing countries regarding agriculture. Despite the great pessimism that ensued, on August 1, 2004, WTO negotiators from 147 countries announced a breakthrough in negotiations to l...