The European Union enlargement - the case of agriculture in Slovenia

The costs and benefits of EU-accession for Slovenian agriculture were estimated and discussed by use of comparative and empirical analyses, The structural and natural conditions of Slovenian agricultural production and policies differ a lot from the European ones, The production is small in scale, the support is based on price subsidies. Producer prices are almost at the level of the European prices, and hence they are significantly higher than on the world market. The PSE computed shows that Slovenian agricultural support is at the average level of the OECD member states, which directly implies the highest agrarian protection level amongst all CEEC candidates. By using the static deterministic income model for Slovenian agriculture, the consequences of various scenarios of accession to the Common agricultural policy (CAP) have been estimated, also indicating the potential policy changes. Running the present CAP, the net income in agriculture would increase. Further changes of CAP, and restrictive policy towards new member countries, would abate the attractiveness of EU for the Slovenian agricultural producers. The budget benefits of the EU-accession could be described as slightly positive. Their volume depends on negotiations results as well as on the preparation of domestic policy, The EU-accession and trade liberalisation process by Slovenia calls for a reform of domestic agricultural policy. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.