Since the early 1960s, the European Union’s CAP has been highly protective, encouraging production through high price support, underpinned by import levies, state intervention and trading, and export subsidies. This helped to transform the European Union from a net importer of major temperate agricultural products to a major net exporter. EU exports needed heavy subsidization to be saleable internationally, and consequently depressed world prices. The EU has also maintained preferential access to regulated amounts of imports from members’ former colonies and traditional trading partners.
http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/faq/index_en.htm European Commission Agriculture and Rural Development website for FAQs.
http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/policy-perspectives/policy-briefs/05_en.pdf European Commission Agriculture and Rural Development website with objectives of the CAP 2014–2020.