| Summary: | This paper aims to discuss the origins, the exceptional character and the protectionism of agriculture in the process of regional integration of Europe. Drawing on the analysis of the context of the immediate post-World War II, it analyzes what were the key factors of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), institutionalized in 1962, and its consequences until the early 1990s. Although symbolic for several reasons, CAP was conceived and operationalized without a Community political governance structure that would allow the building of a true unity of European people and states. Therefore, CAP instruments produced major productive and budgetary imbalances, trade diversions, deepening inequalities, internal controversies and conflicts of interest. Despite the incongruities, the protectionist structure of the CAP was retained without structural changes until the 1990s.
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