Subsidies in the European Agriculture - Using the Example of the Südzucker AG

Studienarbeit aus dem Jahr 2010 im Fachbereich Agrarwissenschaften, Note: 1,3, Hanzehogeschool Groningen (International Business School), Veranstaltung: European Business Environment, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: In between the worldwide system of agricultural activities, the European Union plays a very important role. As they have both, a huge consumer market and as well as an enormous production capacity, the whole world has a look on what kind of politics they make and how they act. A big change in the subvention funds could have tremendous impacts on the world economy. The European Union spends an enormous amount of money per year to subsidize its agriculture in order to keep the production of their agricultural products within their own acreages and of course to safeguard employment within the European agricultural branch. As we see Europe as one country, it would have the fourth largest consumption of sugar and the third biggest sugar production. Germany in this case is number two in Europe in terms of the sugar production and the Südzucker AG is therefore the biggest in Germany. Because the amount of the payments is primarily tied to the size of the enterprise, consequentially, European the German grocery-producer is also the main beneficiary of the European agriculture subsidies funds. In the following, first of all the enterprise Südzucker will be described briefly. After that, an explanation of the European agricultural policy, including its attitudes concerning subsidies will be given, before it comes to an overview of the EU sugar policy. After all, I will broach the issue of how Südzucker should act in the future in order to save its position considering these overall policies.