ABSTRACT
The social and political importance of agriculture to the Six has certainly been a factor in making the Common Agricultural Policy the dominant feature of the Community. But it is perhaps well to recall that it was by no means the intention of the founders of the Community that its Common Agricultural Policy should become, and least of all, remain the centrepiece of effort—and expenditure— that it now is. The Treaty also laid down that there should be a common organisation of markets at a Community level, and excluded discrimination among producers and consumers anywhere in the Community. Three alternative systems for this market organisation were mentioned in the Treaty; the Six later opted for a system employing a separate market organisation for each main product. The British system reflected conditions which were very different from those underlying the thinking of the Six. The United Kingdom had a much smaller degree of self-sufficiency.
