The Common Agricultural Policy is a crucial yet controversial EU policy. It generates fierce fights among governments, it affects millions of Europeans, from dairy producers in Poland to grocery stores in Spain, and it costs each EU citizen around 30 euro cents ($0.41) a day in taxes. And yet, the Common Agricultural Policy is one of the most complex and least understood policies of the European Union . To understand the policy, we need to go back to the 1940s and early 1950s. The severe food shortages that many Europeans experienced during and after World War II left a deep emotional impact on the continent. When France, Western Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg created the European Economic Community in 1957, peace in Europe was a key goal but so was food security.