Multiannual Financial Framework: A death sentence for the CAP

Specifically, ECVC underlines the dangers of:

- Reducing the CAP budget by 15–30% as rumoured, when we need a strong budget that will enable us to address the challenges facing the sector.

The main demand of last year’s farmers protests across Europe has not been addressed: guarantee fair prices paid to farmers. The CAP budget must assure this, and furthermore, CAP payments must be redirected towards supporting small- and medium-sized farms, generational renewal, the agroecological transition, and crisis management. Moreover, the climate and health crises are already having a severe impact on the continent's agriculture. A strong budget is imperative to reverse this trend and make our agriculture more resilient, as the majority of farms need this transition.

- A single fund that would eliminate the EAGF and the EAFRD and thus lead to the disappearance of the second pillar. This equates to abandoning the systemic, food and rural vocation of the Common Agricultural Policy.

We recall that the EU has not achieved any of the objectives of the 2023 reform and has not achieved three of the objectives it set itself in the Treaty of Rome in 1962: satisfactory incomes for farmers, fair prices for consumers and stable agricultural markets. This is unacceptable and getting rid of the second pillar would only aggravate the situation, since this pillar makes it possible to counterbalance the devastating effects of the coupling of first pillar CAP payments to surface area.

- Alarming announcements to further renationalise the CAP. The track record of the National Strategic Plans is pitiful: with the exception of a few Member States, this has drastically lowered environmental and social ambitions for the agricultural sector.

While the CAP constitutes a common European project, further renationalisation increases competition between farms across the continent, as they would be subject to different standards and support from one country to another, despite being part of the common market. This not only undermines the CAP's community project, but drives a quest for immediate profit at the expense of the environment and social conditions and working and living conditions for agricultural workers, instead of prioritising a long-term vision and the resilience of rural areas.

Vitor Rodrigues, ECVC Coordinating Committee member, adds, “Weakening the CAP budget demonstrates a lack of strategic vision on the part of the European Union, which threatens European food systems and turns away from its agricultural autonomy. The EU must act coherently: ensure remunerative prices, equip itself with a budget that allows for a transition to autonomy and resilience, and abandon the signing of any free trade agreements that include agriculture, recognising the exceptional and essential activity of feeding our populations.”

Notes to editor - ECVC's position on the Common Agricultural Policy post 2027 is available here.