THE ROMANIAN MILK SECTOR PERFORMANCE COMPARED TO THE EU-27 COUNTRIES IN THE NEW AGRICULTURAL POLICY CONTEXT – NEED TO INCREASE COMPETITIVENESS

Taking into consideration the new Common Agricultural Policy (2014 -2020), for the milk sector, which will have as main component the milk quota removal after 2014, the present paper makes a comparative analysis of the indicators from the milk chain links (agriculture, processing, trade, consumption) from Romania and the EU-27 member states in the period 2009-2012, in order to indicate the performance level and position of Romania position among these European countries, as well as the modalities to narrow the productivity gaps along the Romanian milk chain compared to the European Union, having in view the domestic supply improvement and meeting the consumers’ needs. In this context, an investigation was made by each link in the chain, at the level of milk production, raw milk collection for processing, milk processing, distribution and consumption, in close connection with milk quality and price evolution; certain variants and measures were designed to narrow the productivity and institutional organization gaps of the milk chain in Romania