L'impatto degli accordi Euro-Mediterranei sull'ortofrutta italiana: alcuni risultati

Since 1995, the Barcelona Process aims to establish a free trade area between Mediterranean countries by 2010. The most commercialized products from Mediterranean countries are fruit and vegetables. The agreement defines, only for some products, preferences at the entrance of the EU market, limited concession for each partner for single products, limited quantities and calendars. This work tries to analyse the impact of the liberalization on the Italian products applying a gravity model in order to asses the Italian import flows from eight Mediterranean countries which signed the Barcelona agreement. The econometric estimation includes fruit and vegetables at the aggregate level and some specified products that enter in competition with typical Italian Mediterranean production such as citrus, melons, potatoes and tomatoes. Since these Mediterranean countries appear as a highly heterogeneous block related to historical, cultural, political and geographical factors, the gravity equation controls these factors by an augmented gravity equation.