The European Commission’s approval of all 28 strategic plans submitted by the Member States (one for each EU country and two for Belgium) allows the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) to enter into force on 1 January 2023.
It provides for a budget of €264 billion to help European farmers.
The co-financing and additional national funding will bring the total public budget for farmers and rural communities to €307 billion for the period 2023-2027. Other programmes which fall under the competence of the CAP but are excluded from the CAP strategic plans, such as POSEI for the outermost regions, the EU schools programme and promotion programmes, will receive additional EU funding of €6 billion.
Almost €20 billion in basic income support will be allocated each year to eligible farmers. However, this aid is conditional on farmers applying enhanced basic standards of Good Agricultural and Environmental Condition (GAEC). GAEC should cover almost 90% of the EU’s agricultural land.
The redistributive payment will represent 10.6% of all direct payments. This will amount to €4 billion per year, which is 2.5 times more than the redistributive payments under the current CAP.
In the CAP strategic plans, almost €98 billion, or 32% of total CAP funding (EU and co-financing), will be devoted to achieving benefits for the climate, water, soil, air, biodiversity and animal welfare and to encouraging practices that go beyond mandatory cross-compliance.
Twenty-four percent of direct payments are allocated to eco-schemes and 48% of rural development spending under all plans will fully support environmental and climate objectives.
Crop rotation should cover about 85% of the arable land supported by the CAP.
More info: https://aeur.eu/f/4p9 (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)