However, the system included problems, which became apparent as the Community established a substantial surplus for most of its agricultural products. First, the CAP increased output beyond the market's need via the guaranteeing of prices through intervention and production aids. Second, the very success of the CAP caused tension within the Community's trading partners as subsidized exports affected the market, and thirdly, the desire to produce more food brought with it environmental damage to certain regions.
The legal basis for the Common Agricultural Policy is defined in Articles 32-38 in Title II of the European Commission Treaty, in which, Articles 33-34 form the basic foundation for the CAP. Article 33 lists the objectives of the Common Agricultural Policy as a means "to increase agricultural productivity by promoting technical progress and by ensuring the rational development of agricultural production and the optimum utilization of the factors of production, to ensure a fair standard of living for the agricultural community, in particular by increasing the individual earnings of persons engaged in agriculture, to stabilize markets, to assure the availability of supplies, and to ensure that supplies reach consumers at reasonable prices- (www.europa.eu.int). .
Through Article 34 came the creation of the Common Organization of the Agricultural Markets (COM). These COM's were to take on one of three different forms, depending on the product. They successfully eliminate obstacles to intra-Union trade while also keeping a common customs barrier with respect to countries outside the Union. Results of the COM's include a unified market in which products move freely between nations, community preference in which European Union products are always given preference, price advantage over imported products, and financial solidarity in which all expenses by the CAP are covered by the Community budget.
