Ten Years after EU Accession: Performance in the Agri-food Sectors of the New Member States

Jámbor, Attila

Keywords: agri-food performance, accession, New Member States, ten years

Ten years have passed since ten countries acceded to the European Union. The tenth anniversary provides a good opportunity for stocktaking and assessing the developments of these New Member States. The aim of the paper is to measure, compare and rank agrifood performance in the New Member States. In order to achieve this aim, the paper applies an innovative tool, the agri-food performance index, consisting of an average of 15 different indicators, measuring agricultural, agri-environmental and rural performances. Although all countries gained from the accession, Poland, Estonia and Lithuania could best use the opportunities provided by the common market, while Slovakia, Latvia and Hungary were the worst performers.
However, sectorial performances of the countries highly differed. The Baltic States and Poland showed the best agricultural performances, while Slovakia performed the worst in this regard, slightly behind Hungary. It was Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia that used the agri-environmental opportunities the most, while in contrast to their agricultural performances, the Baltic States performed much worse regarding the changes in the field of agri-environment. As to rural performances, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic led the line, while in the past ten years rural areas developed the least in Lithuania, Latvia and Hungary.
The reasons behind these different performances are numerous. The article identified the following: differences in initial conditions, farm structures and land and farm policies; the privatisation process and the magnitude of foreign capital; the use of pre-accession programmes; the macro environment and the volatility and transparency of national agricultural policies.

Full article