Euro-mediterranean agricultural trade agreement: which real impact on the eu citrus productions?

The impact of trade liberalization with TMCs has been a reason for significant concern among agricultural producers of the European southern coasts, and has thus been occupying a central role in political debate. Agricultural trade liberalization has complex implications, especially for the European Mediterranean regions involved in the Barcelona Process, and particularly as far as it concerns fruits and vegetables, for which the most important export market for TMCs is represented by the EU. Said concerns have been addressed by an ever increasing number of studies, focusing on evaluating its effects on different productive realities. Within this context, it would seem possible to trace some setting outlines, although the strong interdependence between markets, and the uncertainty of the general evolutionary framework would suggest doing so with caution. Several critical issues have been identified in the citrus sector, both in its whole, and more specifically in the case of Italy. These have been partly due to the expansionary trends of exports originating in countries such as Egypt and Turkey, future competitors in the European citrus market, both in terms of general norms and production costs