A stable and well-funded common agricultural policy is essential to delivering food security, competitiveness, and sustainability for farmers, the agri-food chain, and European consumers. The common agricultural policy (CAP) lies at the heart of the EU’s agri-food system and is fundamental to the livelihoods of Europe’s farmers.
Europe’s food and drink sector, the EU’s largest manufacturing industry, buys some 70% of all EU agricultural output. The stability and sustainability of agricultural production therefore directly impact the entire value chain and the competitiveness of
European food and drink manufacturers within the EU and worldwide.
Our industries cannot function without a reliable supply of safe, high-quality EU raw materials at competitive prices. That is why we need European farmers to have the best conditions in which to produce and thrive.
While the Commission’s push to simplify the CAP and reduce administrative burden is encouraging, getting governance, funding and coherence right is the next critical step. Without it, the CAP cannot deliver on its potential to strengthen competitiveness, resilience, and sustainability across the agri-food chain.
Policy asks
(1) Ensure EU-level coherence: Safeguard the CAP’s common framework
The CAP must continue to operate under a clearly defined EU-level framework, with its own regulation, a dedicated budget line, and common baseline rules.road Member State discretion risks creating uneven conditions for farmers and food and drink businesses across the Single Market. Robust, harmonised monitoring indicators and clearly measured outcomes are essential to maintaining coherence across the Single Market. Implementation guidance should be sensitive to the diversity of farming systems and agri-food sectors across the EU.
(2) Protect the transition payment: Close the implementation gap
The transition payment (Art. 10) must be protected and made workable in practice. It should serve as a temporary, risk-sharing instrument to support whole-farm transitions towards more sustainable and regenerative production systems, including low-carbon agricultural approaches, across diverse cropping and mixed farming systems. It should also bridge income during transition periods and support complementary investment, including blended public-private finance to allow sustainable practices to scale.
The administrative burden of transition action plans, for both farmers and Member States, must be minimised and implementation support, including qualified advisory services, should be made available. Finally, weakening the transition payment would slow adoption of sustainable practices and jeopardise the delivery of EU climate and nature commitments.
(3) Ring-fence environmental spending: Close the governance gap
Policymakers should introduce a mandatory minimum share of agricultural spending dedicated to environmental measures within the National and Regional Partnership Plans (NRPP) framework. The 43% expenditure target, devoted to climate and environmental objectives, must be explicitly protected for agricultural transition specifically, and must be accessible to farms of all sizes and types. It should not be diluted as a cross-sectoral aggregate that can be met through spending in other policy areas.
Importantly, agri-environmental payments should be treated as distinct from and additional to any income support capping mechanisms, to ensure that payment thresholds do not inadvertently limit farmers’ ability to access environmental support. To ensure that commitments made at EU level translate into accountable outcomes, reporting requirements should be transparent and harmonised at Member State level, enabling meaningful comparability and monitoring across the EU.
