Simplifying some of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) rules could save €1.58 billion per year for farmers and €210 million each year for member states, according to the European Commission.
To achieve this goal, the EU executive has proposed easier payments for small farmers, including increasing the annual lump sum to €2,500, and more flexible environmental controls, namely for the conservation of peatlands, wetlands and watercourses.
Farmers will also benefit from an easier mechanism to be reimbursed in the event of natural disasters or animal diseases and will have a single digital system to reduce bureaucracy.
“The aim is to make life easier for farmers, ultimately contributing to their livelihoods and well-being,” said Gerardo Fortuna, Euronews’ agricultural policy reporter.
“It is also clearly a response to the large-scale farmers’ protests that we saw last year in Brussels and in other EU countries,” the reporter said, referring to the long and sometimes violent wave of farmers’ protests ahead of the 2024 European elections.
Farmers are happy, but environmentalists say the measures will be counterproductive. The latter argue that less environmental protection could lead to more climate change, which could harm agriculture.
“What we need to understand is that agriculture depends on nature. So when the EU has been delaying or eliminating environmental rules for several years, it is also putting the future of agriculture and farmers’ jobs at risk,” said Sarah Martin of environmental organisation Client Earth.
However, the European farmers’ federation, Copa-Cogeca, insists that “environmental objectives remain in the CAP” but the Commission has intervened in areas “that have proven unworkable for our farmers”.
Will the CAP be strengthened or diluted in the next EU budget?
In the 2021-2027 EU budget, the CAP received €386 billion, about a third of the total budget. For the 2028-2034 budget, the Commission advocates merging the CAP with the Cohesion Fund, which is used for regional development.
The new financial instrument, called National and Regional Investment Partnerships, could be announced when the Commission unveils its EU budget proposal in July, and farmers are resisting the idea.
“Europe needs to invest in agriculture, with a strong fiscal increase in the face of inflation. We call for maintaining a common policy capable of guaranteeing a single market, investing to achieve the transition that society wants and, in fact, supporting a strategic sector such as agriculture,” said Patrick Pagani.
The Client Earth officer agreed that investment in agriculture is important for food security, but said that the CAP does not contribute to this.
“We don’t have the resilience to deal with natural disasters caused by intensive farming practices; nor to address the causes that put farmers in these situations, which are climate change, environmental degradation, loss of pollinators and so on,” said Sarah Martin.
The European Parliament also opposes this idea and, in a recent resolution, demanded that the CAP fund remain autonomous and receive even more funding in the next budget.
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Journalist: Isabel Marques da Silva
Content production: Pilar Montero López
Video production: Zacharia Vigneron
Graphism: Loredana Dumitru
Editorial coordination: Ana Lázaro Bosch and Jeremy Fleming-Jones
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