An Inside View of the CAP Reform Process

Arlindo Cunha holds a degree in economics from the University of Porto and a PhD from the University of Reading. He worked as an economist and director at the Northern Portugal Regional Development Board (1976-86), and spent most of his life implementing the CAP and negotiating its reforms: was Minister of State at the Ministry of topiculture (1986-90), Minister for Agriculture (1990-94) and Member of the European Parliament (1994-2003). In 2003-2004 became President of Northern Portugal Regional Development Board and Minister of Environment, Cities, Regional Development and Land Planning (2004). He is presently Professor of European Economy at the Portuguese Catholic University-Porto. He has written:'A Role for Direct Payments? The Doha Round, EU Enlargement and Prospects for CAP Reform', in Swinbank and Tranter (eds.), A Bond Scheme for Common Agricultural Policy Reform (Wallingford: CABI Publishing) and other articles.

Alan Swinbank retired as Professor of Agricultural Economics at the University of Reading, the UK, where he had been since 1977. In the mid-1970s he spent four years as a junior administrator in the Directorate-General for Agriculture in the Commission of the European Communities. His research and teaching focussed on the food and farm policies of the EU, and on the WTO (World Trade Organization) process of agri-food trade liberalisation. He has lectured and written extensively on these topics. In recent years he has published in the European Review of Agricultural Economics, the Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics, Food Policy, the Journal of Common Market Studies, the Journal of World Trade, The World Economy, and others. In 2009 he co-authored (with Carsten Daugbjerg) Ideas, Institutions and Trade: The WTO and the Curious Role of EU Farm Policy in Trade Liberalization published by Oxford University Press.