Presentation
On 16 July 2025, the European Commission presented a proposal for a multiannual financial framework covering the period 2028-2034, accompanied by a package of legislative proposals notably addressing the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the management arrangements for a «Single Fund» into which the CAP is to be integrated. Taken together, these proposals outline a new budgetary and regulatory architecture that must still be negotiated by the Member States and the European Parliament. This Issue Brief identifies several major changes in the Commission’s proposals that will constitute key issues in the forthcoming negotiations regarding the sector’s transition.
Key Messages
- The European Commission proposes a new architecture for the CAP through the creation of a Single Fund comprising the CAP budget and the introduction of National and Regional Partnership Plans (NRPPs). This opens up the negotiation space to non-agricultural actors, and therefore to a greater variety of interests, which could facilitate a departure from the status quo.
- Budgetary concerns have so far dominated stakeholder and Member State (MS) preoccupations, particularly due to a 16% reduction in current prices of the pre-allocated CAP budget. However, this budget represents only a minimum threshold: given changes to co-financing rules and the greater flexibility granted to MS in allocating funds under shared management, it is not possible to quantify precisely the evolution of support paid under the CAP.
- Beyond the budget, four issues appear decisive for the sector’s future: Basic income support for farmers, the CAP’s flagship instrument, is being redesigned to improve its distribution among beneficiaries and target it towards those deemed a priority on the basis of socio-economic criteria.
• The green architecture is being reworked, with increased subsidiarity, both in the conditionality of CAP support and in incentive measures. However, the absence of a pre-allocated budget for agri-environmental actions and the obligation for MS to co-finance them at a rate of 30% suggest low uptake of these measures.
• The Commission proposes EU-level management of market crises but leaves MS responsible for managing climate and health crises. This could encourage them to strengthen prevention measures improving farm resilience, although there is no guarantee that they will seize this opportunity.
• The performance model retains the weaknesses of the current CAP: indicators that do not reflect the effectiveness of the measures implemented, a heavy bureaucratic burden, and little incentive for MS to adopt ambitious objectives.
- The ambition and common framework of the reform envisaged by the Commission rest on the prerogatives it allocates itself to constrain MS in preparing and monitoring their NRPPs. However, these prerogatives, unpopular with MS, are unlikely to survive the negotiations between MS and in the European Parliament. Consequently, the co-legislators should design other safeguards to preserve the common ambition, particularly environmental ambition. Failing this, the reform would result in a policy close to that currently in force, at the cost of continuing to weaken its common character.
