**4. Results**

#### *4.1. Land Grabbing in Europe*

Even though the land grabbing phenomenon is often described as being limited in the EU compared to other continents, it is currently experiencing an accelerated dynamic, and the concentration of agricultural lands is a real concern for the people promoting the CAP. Based on statistical data, the European Parliament estimates that in 2013 only 3.1% of farms controlled 52.2% of the farmland in Europe, and 76.2% of farms had the use of only 11.2% of the agricultural land [22]. Starting from the adverse effects of agrarian land concentration, the Resolution adopted by the European Parliament proposes measures to limit the phenomenon and facilitate farmers' access to land.

Land grabbing has its particularities in each country in terms of size, causes and implications. To limit the phenomenon, concrete measures have been established.

In France [23], the land policies were modified profoundly to guarantee the ownership of land by small farmers. However, these policies now have undesirable side effects, because they prevent fair access to the property, particularly access for young farmers who do not come from agricultural families. By stipulating strict rules in the leasing contracts, the conflict between landowners and farmers favors the latter. The monitoring of farming structures established in the 1960s provided a government license to work the land. The licenses granted by the local commissions gives priority to new farmers and farms that are too small to be viable. Further, the society for land planning and rural establishment (SAFER) was set up at the local level and aimed to prioritize agricultural land use, restructure farms and settle new farmers by purchasing agricultural lands and reselling them to other farms. There are severe restrictions on the purchase of property in France, but even so these can be circumvented. An example is the Bordeaux region, where Chinese investors have bought about 100 vineyards.

Land acquisition in France is difficult for new farmers due to land grabbing, "artificialization" for non-agricultural projects and land concentration within the farming sector. The level of land in France was encouraged by CAP subsidies and environmental regulations. In 1955, 80% of all farms in France had less than 20 ha; the average size today is around 80 ha.

Of course, the situation of the land areas owned by agricultural holdings in Germany bears the imprint of the reunification of East Germany with West Germany. The existence of smaller fields in the West and larger areas located to the East of Elbe River characterize the farming landscape [6]. The land retrocession after 1989 to the former owners who possessed less than 100 ha during the German Democratic Republic times and had been expropriated between 1945 and 1949, were made by purchase, at a reduced price, from the Land Administration and Privatization Agency (BVVG Bodenverwertungs- und -Verwaltung GmbH). Between 1991 and 2012, the number of holdings of more than 5 ha has halved due to an accelerated process of land concentration [24]. Major investors control large areas of land (KTG Agrar, a financial investor specializing in large farming operations controls more than 38,000 ha). This process implies a substantial erosion of culture and social life in rural areas.

As a result of the agricultural land concentration that manifested in Germany and the consequences of this phenomenon, legislative measures were adopted to limit the practice. The German Constitutional Court ruled in its judgment of 12 January 1967 (1 BvR 169/63, BVerfG 21, 73-87) that the trade of rural lands need not be as free as the trade of other capital, as the land is unrenewable and indispensable. An equitable legal and social order requires the public interest in land to be taken into account far more than in the case of other properties [22].

In Hungary, the formal statistical data show that the size of farmland grabbing is insignificant, because the legislation regarding the acquisition of agricultural land by foreigners is restrictive. However, in the last two decades, approximately 1 million ha of land has been bought by foreigners through "pocket contracts". After the legal restrictions on the sale of land were removed, the respective contracts were registered. In 2015, the government initiated a tender programmed to sell agricultural

land to farmers (Hungarian citizens living in Hungary), including about 200,000 ha in 10 ha plots, which were granted through preferential loans.

Poland does not formally prohibit the purchase of agricultural land by foreigners, but the conditions imposed on the purchase of estate are restrictive. Foreigners may purchase a property if they meet the following requirements: they are married to a Polish citizen, and she/he has been living and doing farming in the country for at least three years. If these conditions are met, the particular plot rented by her/him may be bought [25].

To the above restrictions should be added the active intervention of the state in the sale of agricultural land by exercising the right of pre-emption and redemption by the state to purchase land in private circulation then sell it to individual farmers on a preferential basis (through the Agricultural Property Agency). Also, the purchaser must run a farm personally for 10 years. Currently, due to these restrictions, the threat of land grabbing in Poland is not considered to be significant [26].

The political changes in the Balkans after 1989 caused by the fall of communism and Yugoslavia's disintegration led to the privatization of agriculture. New agricultural structures have often proved inefficient, and as a consequence land grabbing has been favored.

In Serbia, the privatization of agriculture has hastened as a result of poor regulations regarding land property. After the sale of agricultural enterprises, the Privatization Agency granted the right of land use to the new owners only, and registered these areas in the real-estate registry as the owners' private properties [27].

This non-transparent privatization process favored land grabbing. The four largest farms in Serbia together now hold over 100,000 ha of land, and the subsidies offered by the state and the Serbian Stabilization and Association Agreement with the EU that allows foreigners to buy property have led to higher land prices and speculation. Ending land grabbing is possible only through the joint action of the organizations to provide viable alternatives in agriculture and by increasing the social pressure applied from the worker–peasant movement in Serbia.

After the fall of communism, land reform in Bulgaria went took two forms: (i) the dissolution of state-run, large-scale cooperatives, and (ii) the restitution of land owned before the collectivization of agriculture in 1946. The liquidation took place quickly and was marked by massive corruption, while land restitution took a long time and led to severe fragmentation in land ownership [28]. This aspect later favored land grabbing because, in many cases, the new owners were not interested in agriculture. Subsequent land use legislation has allowed local governments to redistribute agricultural land (if there is no intention to use it) to investors, who use the law to seize their property.
