On Monday 23 February in Brussels, the European agriculture ministers were cautious about the national recommendations for the common agricultural policy (CAP) proposed by the European Commission for the period 2028-2034.
These recommendations, to be prepared in 2026 between the Member States and the Commission, are intended to guide the capitals in drawing up their national and regional partnership plans for 2028-2034, as well as in implementing the relevant specific CAP objectives.
The ministers stressed that these national recommendations should remain a non-legally binding instrument and offer Member States the flexibility they need to adapt interventions to national situations.
The French delegation felt that only regulatory texts could create legal obligations for Member States. The recommendations can therefore neither be binding nor modified unilaterally by the Commission during the programming period. Paris pointed out that the experience of national strategic plans had generated legal uncertainties and called for a re-examination of the relevance of renewing this mechanism.
Spanish Minister for Agriculture Luis Planas also insisted on the recommendations’ non-binding nature, and was opposed to any quantified targets being set. Spain argued for a clarification of the timetable and the relationship between the European and national levels.
The German minister, Alois Rainer, expressed support for preparatory work beforehand, while calling for specific national characteristics to be respected. Finland, for its part, argued for leaving significant leeway to the Member States. The Commission has already held dialogues with eight EU countries on these recommendations.
Transfer of provisions. France stressed the need to “move quickly” in negotiations on transferring certain provisions of the regulation concerning national and regional partnership plans (2028-2034) to the CAP texts in order to respect the timetable (see EUROPE 13813/7). A clear, stable and shared definition of the regulations’ scope is considered essential for the continuation of discussions on both the CAP and the common fisheries policy (CFP).
For France, this transfer is “a key element in the acceptability of the new architecture proposed for the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF)” post-2027. It regretted that, at this stage, none of the requests for additional information had been taken into account, even though they concerned limited sections of articles not covered by the Commission’s proposals and had no direct budgetary consequences. This applies in particular to certain definitions in Article 4 and the list of interventions in Article 35.
France clarified that its proposals were explicitly designed not to affect the operation of the financial instrument provided for in the regulation on partnership plans, by excluding, for example, elements relating to funding rates from the transfer.
Finally, France reiterated its commitment to ensuring that the CAP remains a truly common policy.
Spain also argued for maintaining a solid, coherent and fully European CAP. Italy felt that the transfers of provisions should be even more ambitious than those proposed by France. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)