THE COMMON AGRICULTURAL POLICY OF THE EUROPEAN UNION WITH A SPECIAL FOCUS ON AGRICULTURE IN THE NEW EU MEMBER STATES

This paper represents a product of professor (mentor) and student (graduate) cooperation. It analyses the the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union (CAP), which is trying to preserve agriculture that guarantees food safety and to ensure sustainable and balanced development of all European rural areas, including areas with difficult production conditions. This agriculture policy should respond to citizens' concerns in terms of food, but at the same time, it is necessary to preserve rural communities and landscapes, as they are a precious part of European heritage. Rural areas cover more than 77% of the area of the European Union, and in them lives approximately half of the EU population. By entering of Central and Eastern European countries in the EU's agricultural diversity of Europe has increased even more. The CAP allows the farmers from the EU to meet the needs of about 500 million people whose main goals are to provide a decent living for farmers and to guarantee well-established and safe food supply at a price affordable for consumers. Since its inception in 1962, the CAP has developed significantly. It is developing continuously, and the basic priorities of CAP are to guarantee sustainable food production, to ensure the sustainable management of natural resources and promote the balanced development of rural areas of the EU. Poland, which is the most successful new EU member state when it comes to the CAP, utilizes all the benefits of this policy. Poland can be considered as a model country, which consistently applies and takes advantage of the agricultural policy. The paper analyzes the implementation of CAP on the overall growth of the Polish economy and GDP.