During the Agriculture Council meeting taking place in Brussels, European farmers (accompanied by cows) interrupt the session, thus reacting to the “Mansholt Plan” for the upcoming reforms in the Common Agricultural Policy.
A convinced European federalist, Mansholt (Commissioner for Agriculture in the first European Commission in 1958) envisioned a common agricultural policy for Europe as early as 1950, when he drafted a plan for a common market for agricultural products in Europe, with a supranational administrative structure. It was the first reform of the CAP aimed at the optimal exploitation of cultivated land and the merging of farms to create larger units.
