Czech foreign agricultural trade after joining the European Union

Abstract

The objective of the paper is to assess how the Czech agricultural sector has withstood keen competition in the EU single market as measured by the basic indicators of foreign trade exchange. The impacts expressed by the indicators of active and/or adverse balance of trade were monitored for the post-accession period (the average of the years 2005-2007) in comparison with the pre-accession period (the average of the years 2001-2003). The assessment of the impacts of the accession to the EU is based on an analysis of the commodity and territorial structure of Czech agricultural foreign trade. The comparison of agricultural balance before and after the accession to the EU for our major trading partners shows that the active balance of the CR with Slovakia increased to 12.0 billion CZK per year; on the contrary, in relation to Poland, the trade deficit of 6.4 billion CZK per year was recorded while Germany strengthened its position in relation to the CR by an increase in the negative balance to 5.4 billion CZK and in relation to Austria, our adverse balance is maintained at the level of 1.1 to 1.2 billion CZK per year for a long time. After the accession to the EU, it was confirmed that the former EU 15 countries took a greater advantage of the customs union enlargement in the framework of the EU 27.

Keywords

• foreign agricultural trade
• pre-accession period (2001-2003)
• post-accession period (2005-2007)
• structure
• european union
• active and/or adverse balance of trade
• agricultural commodities