European agriculture ministers welcomed, on Tuesday 23 June in Luxembourg, the progress made in the search for an agreement on the post-2027 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), while acknowledging the need to continue work in order to strike the right balance between the common elements of the CAP and the subsidiarity essential to its implementation. Negotiations on the CAP for the 2028-2034 period will continue under the Irish Presidency of the Council of the European Union from July to December 2026.
Several ministers called for a strong, common CAP with sufficient resources. They stressed that national recommendations could not replace the provisions of the regulations adopted by the co-legislators and welcomed the transfer of many CAP-specific provisions from the regulation on national and regional partnership plans to the sectoral regulations.
The European Commissioner for Agriculture, Christophe Hansen, said that the current discussions on the CAP “give excessive prominence to flexibility at the expense of the common nature of the policy”. The compromise texts submitted by the Cyprus Presidency of the EU Council suggest making optional almost all the interventions that are currently compulsory, such as measures in support of the environmental transition, degressivity of aid, payments for small farmers and aid for the setting-up of rural businesses.
Regarding the targeting of aid, Mr Hansen said he was willing to reopen the discussion on degressivity and capping of aid, “but we must demonstrate that we are delivering genuine reforms”. “Without common rules or a better targeted policy, we weaken the justification for a substantial budget devoted to this policy, particularly in a context of strong competition between different budgetary priorities”, the Commissioner warned. The definition of the ‘active farmer’ is not a mere technical detail of the Commission proposal: it is its cornerstone. Mr Hansen also welcomed the fact that the latest compromise text acknowledges the need for strong support for generational renewal and makes the mechanism relating to the transfer of farms compulsory.
French Agriculture Minister Annie Genevard said she was “committed to the common nature of the CAP”. For her, cofinancing rates should be increased in order to secure the level of European commitment and guarantee the implementation of several key CAP measures across all Member States. According to France, the possibility of remunerating compliance with conditionality gives rise to reservations, insofar as it calls into question the existence of a minimum set of requirements applicable to all. France also thanked the Presidency for having simplified the criteria for targeting basic support while maintaining the compulsory nature of targeting in favour of young farmers.
To ensure better targeting of aid, Portugal said that there was no need to introduce a European definition of the ‘active farmer’. As regards the definitions of ‘young farmer’ and ‘new farmer’, Member States should be able themselves to determine the minimum training requirements, according to the Portuguese delegation.
Portugal considered that the exclusion of retired farmers was not the best lever for promoting generational renewal. It wanted transition plans to remain optional in order to avoid excessive administrative complexity.
On the reform of the common market organisation (CMO), Portugal regretted the absence of a ceiling for national cofinancing of sectoral interventions, which could lead to a renationalisation of the CAP.
Spain also opposed national co-financing of the ‘fruit and vegetables’ and ‘winegrowing’ programmes.
For Italy, the compromises drawn up went in the direction of greater consistency in the legal framework, while offering greater flexibility to Member States. The CAP cannot be regarded as “a budgetary adjustment variable”, according to this delegation. Italy stressed the need to maintain the central role of the ‘Agriculture’ Council as the body steering agricultural issues politically, notably for fundamental notions such as that of the ‘active farmer’. Moreover, Italy considered it a priority to extend the European safety net to extreme climate events, natural disasters and epizootics.
Jacek Czerniak, State Secretary at the Polish ministry, reaffirmed his reservations regarding the gradual abandonment of the current CAP architecture, its integration with other sectoral policies and the reduction in funding devoted to agriculture. Poland advocated integrating the tobacco sector into sectoral interventions, as well as increasing the rate of European support for producer organisations from 4.1% to 6% of the value of marketed production. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)