The role of the economic crisis on the competitiveness of the agri-food sector in the main Mediterranean countries

Th e world economic crisis that, since 2008 has also struck the real economy, cannot be attributed only to the United States bubble which in 2007 involved the mortgage credit market, but it is the result of a series of factors among which the imbalance of the fi nancial market, of the public accounts of the main economies and the real sector. Also agricul- ture, which has always been considered an anti-cyclic sector, has seen a strong slowdown with a plunge in the trade fl ows. Th is paper analyses the changes which happened to the competitive position in the world market of some Mediterranean countries and of France, Italy, Spain and Turkey in particular trying, moreover, to understand the…