The weather isn’t the only thing heating up over the next few months. Negotiations over the shapes of the EU’s farming subsidy programme will start firing on all cylinders in the second half of the year. Natasha Foote walks you through the latest from Brussels.
As I’ve been travelling for work across various EU member states recently talking to farmers, it’s struck me that plenty seem either unaware or confused about the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform that is on the table (to which I tend to reply, ‘you and me both’).
But as this 2027 reform will shape the next decade of food and farming in the EU, it’s pertinent to take stock of where we’re currently at in the discussions as negotiations over this next CAP start to really heat up in the second half of the year.
CAP catch up
First things first – let’s have a quick CAP catch up.
The top line is that the Commission’s proposal represents the biggest overhaul of the CAP in decades.
For instance, rather than maintaining CAP as a distinct policy with its familiar two-pillar structure, it would fold much of it into an €865 billion broader package of National and Regional Partnership Plans (NRPP), to be doled out by member states via national plans as they see fit.
While direct income support would remain ringfenced, much of the rest of CAP spending—including rural development—would compete with priorities ranging from cohesion and infrastructure to migration, defence and climate resilience.
The Commission argues this will simplify administration, reduce duplication and give member states greater flexibility to tailor spending to national needs. Critics see something rather different: the dilution of the CAP as a genuinely common policy, weaker democratic oversight and increased risks that environmental and rural development funding will lose out to more politically pressing priorities.
Environmental organisations have also raised concerns that the proposal weakens the CAP’s green architecture. Environmental conditionality disappears, while no dedicated budgets are earmarked for biodiversity or climate measures.
With negotiations taking place in a much less Green Deal-friendly political climate than the last reform, expectations for stronger environmental safeguards are lower.
See more here.
The budget battle
Before lawmakers can dive into the finer details of the CAP itself, they face a bigger hurdle: agreeing the EU’s next long-term budget, a feat proving far easier said than done.
Discussions over the €2 trillion Multiannual Financial Framework are proving particularly difficult. At June’s European Council summit, leaders failed to rally behind the Commission’s proposal, leaving negotiations over both the overall budget and the CAP allocation unresolved.
The Cypriot Presidency attempted to broker an early compromise before handing over to Ireland on 1 July, but failed to secure sufficient backing. The Irish Presidency is now expected to present a revised compromise around September or October, ahead of a leaders’ summit later this year.
Member states have broadly accepted the principle of integrating CAP into the wider NRPP architecture, but many continue to disagree over how much funding should ultimately be set aside for farming. Meanwhile, the European Parliament has already called for a significantly larger and more clearly ringfenced agricultural budget, setting up an institutional clash long before trilogue negotiations begin.
The budget debate will touch many other contentious points on the reform. Questions over degressivity and payment caps, funding for environmental measures, and the future of rural development all depend on how much money is ultimately available.
The political fault lines
Beyond the budget, there are plenty of other issues to keep everyone busy.
One is who should receive support, with debates intensifying over the definition of an “active farmer”, whether retired farmers should continue receiving direct payments, and how funding should be better targeted towards younger farmers and smaller holdings.
Other disputes concern the future design of national plans, the balance between flexibility and accountability, and how transparent Member States will have to be in allocating funds.
The more discretion governments receive, the greater the concerns from civil society groups about consistency, oversight and maintaining common EU standards to protect against a race to the bottom on, for example, environmental measures.
Latest from lawmakers
While budget negotiations continue, political positions inside the European Parliament are already beginning to crystallise.
Centre-right rapporteur Norbert Lins (EPP, Germany) presented his draft report in June, marking a significant departure from several elements of the Commission proposal.
Among its key changes, the report removes mandatory degressivity for area-based payments while introducing a payment ceiling of €500,000 per natural person, with Member States retaining the option of applying a lower €100,000 cap. Redistributive payments and dedicated support for young farmers would return, while retired farmers could continue to receive income support.
The report also expands flexibility for agri-environment-climate commitments, allowing payments to exceed actual costs and income foregone, while proposing a much stricter limit on coupled income support by cutting the maximum available budget to roughly half of what the Commission proposed.
The Parliament’s Agriculture Committee is expected to spend the coming months negotiating amendments before agreeing its formal negotiating position.
Meanwhile, negotiations have also been getting well underway in the Council.
On 17 June, the Cypriot Presidency circulated a first compromise text, giving Member States an initial basis for negotiations. Much of the discussion so far has focused on governance, the integration of CAP into the NRPP, and preserving sufficient flexibility for national administrations.
With Ireland now holding the rotating Council Presidency, attention is shifting towards building political consensus. Ireland—a country with a politically influential farming sector but not the weightiest country when it comes to EU decision making—has identified food security, competitiveness, simplification, sustainability and generational renewal as priorities for the coming six months.
Finding agreement among Member States on the overall architecture of the reform while simultaneously navigating fraught budget negotiations will be its central challenge.
The EU’s Agriculture Council is expected to continue policy debates throughout the autumn, but substantial progress on the legislative file will, to an extent, depend on parallel movement in negotiations over the EU budget (which, in itself, is likely to be heavily impacted by the looming elections across many key member states, such as France).
Cart before the horse?
Despite the uncertainty surrounding the wider reform, the Commission is already pressing ahead with one of its first deliverables: country-specific CAP recommendations that will guide how Member States draw up their National and Regional Partnership Plans.
According to a Commission spokesperson, the recommendations are intended to ensure that “the common objectives of the Common Agricultural Policy are met across the EU” while allowing governments to tailor implementation to national circumstances.
Under the Commission’s proposal, Member States will be expected to address these recommendations when preparing their national plans, and the Commission will assess whether they have done so before approving the plans. Brussels argues that this will become an increasingly important steering mechanism as the new funding architecture gives governments greater flexibility over how EU money is spent.
Not everyone inside the Berlaymont is convinced.
Commission sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, questioned both the political appetite for the recommendations and their practical value. One described the exercise as “the stupidest thing”, adding they had “never felt like I was doing something so useless”.
Their frustration stems from the fact that many Member States are understood to be sceptical of the recommendation process itself, while the draft legislation gives the Commission few meaningful tools to enforce them even if they are formally adopted.
Some also raise concerns about how the recommendations are being prepared. While Member States are consulted throughout the drafting process, other stakeholders—including environmental organisations, farming groups and civil society—are not formally involved. According to Commission sources, even other Commission departments, including DG ENV and DG CLIMA, have not been systematically consulted.
The evidence base has also become a point of contention. Officials say they are largely restricted to harmonised datasets such as Eurostat, limiting their ability to incorporate more recent scientific evidence or national research. The result, one source argued, is a series of recommendations that risk becoming “low-ball” assessments of the challenges facing European agriculture.
What happens next?
The months ahead will determine whether the Commission’s proposal evolves into a modest reform or a more fundamental rewrite.
Much will depend on the outcome of budget negotiations. Until Member States agree on the size of the EU budget and how much of it should be reserved for agriculture, many of the most politically sensitive CAP questions cannot be settled.
The timeline is already tight. The last CAP reform, proposed in 2018, was only agreed in 2021 and entered into force in 2023 after a two-year transition period. The Commission is keen to avoid another delay, but with negotiations over defence spending, enlargement and the broader EU budget all competing for attention, few in Brussels expect a straightforward process.
For now, the real battle is only just brewing. By the end of the year, both Parliament and Council should have clearer negotiating positions, setting the stage for what promises to be one of the most consequential CAP negotiations in recent memory.
This article is produced in cooperation with the
Heinrich Böll Stiftung European Union.
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