ABSTRACT
The Agricultural policy field stands out for at least two reasons. First, Agriculture is one of the oldest policy fields regulated at the EU level. National approaches were integrated into the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) already in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Second, the CAP was the largest expenditure item in the EU budget for a long time and is still one of the main spending areas even after recent reforms. Thus, decision-making on Agricultural policy is a major arena for explicitly distributive conflicts. Third, Agriculture is the internal policy area most intensely affected by European regulation (Nugent 2006: 388).
