Old and new narratives on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in times of political turmoil

The European Union is entering a decisive phase in the reform of its Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for 2027-2034. This takes place amid geopolitical instability, climate pressures, and growing expectations and demands for more sustainable food systems and stable farm incomes. The European Commission has tabled reforms that substantially reconfigure both the budgetary architecture and direction of EU agricultural support.

This report a) analyses the unfolding debate and negotiations on the CAP; b) compares stakeholders and European Parliament groups positions on several proposed CAP interventions; and c) examines the possible implications of the proposals and possible changes to it, in particularly for the Netherlands.

Core themes in the CAP debate
The analyses shows that three general themes dominate discussions on the future CAP:

1. Food security and strategic autonomy, increasingly framed through a productionist and neo-mercantilist discourse, linked to geopolitical shocks, market volatility, and input dependencies.
2. Competitiveness versus sustainability, with diverging views on whether competitiveness is a prerequisite for, or in tension with, environmental ambitions; and the
3. Targeting of support, where broad consensus exists on the need for a better-targeting and fairer distribution of income support, but disagreements exist on how far to move away from area-based payments with mandatory conditions.

The Commission’s narrative marks a return to a more productionist discourse (where income support to farmers is justified by their contribution to food production and security) compared to the Farm to Fork Strategy, which reflected a more multi-functionalist discourse (where income support to farmers is largely justified by or conditional on the their contribution to public good that are not rewarded by the market). The Commission’s vision and policy proposals on the CAP still reference climate and biodiversity goals but prioritise food security, competitiveness, simplification and flexibility, and a shift from environmental obligations to incentives.

Key element of the Commission Proposal
The CAP proposal introduces several changes:

• A restructured EU budget integrating the CAP into a single National and Regional Partnership (NRP) Fund, with €293.7 billion ring-fenced for income support, but reduced overall agricultural funding and counting on increased national co-financing;
• Redistributive area-based payments that introduce degressive and capped support;
• A new conditionality model that replaces existing requirement with a more flexible framework, increasing national discretion;
• Eco-schemes and agri-environmental measures combined into a single agri-environmental and climate action framework, without ring-fencing environmental funding and an increased dependence on co-financing;
• Mandatory Coupled Income Support (CIS), expanding production-linked subsidies; and
• More risk management tools that emphasise insurance mechanisms and preventive resilience to hedge for extreme weather and drought.
• This is combined with continued investment in innovation.

Stakeholder and Political group positions

Stakeholder and European Parliament group positions diverge sharply (and familiar) on these proposed changes. Farmer organisations and centre-right political groups strongly defend area-based payments as the backbone of income support and food security, while favouring voluntary environmental measures over obligations. Environmental groups and centre-left and liberal groups argue for a reorientation towards targeted payments for public goods, stronger conditionality and systemic (and ex ante) approaches to resilience. Innovation is widely supported across actors but justified for different reasons: either to increase and reconcile productivity, sustainability and competitiveness, or to enable broader transitions in farming systems.

Implications for the Netherlands

The implications for the Netherlands are considered significant. The country faces a substantial reduction in ring-fenced EU agricultural funding (from €5.6 billion to €5.1 billion). Dutch policy priorities – strengthening long-term production, enhancing farm income, supporting innovation, and scaling agri-environmental measures – may be further constrained by budgetary pressures that follow from mandatory spending requirements in the CAP proposals for area-based and coupled income support.

While the CAP proposals provide increased discretion on how to implement these interventions, a complete removal of obligations to adopt coupled income support schemes or have a minimum spending on area-based payments, is seen as allowing for a greater budget for interventions that could help meeting environmental commitments.

At the same time, it is realised that this flexibility risks further undermining the “commonality” of the CAP across Member States. Under a more flexible CAP, diverging national choices could further fragment the policy and result in big differences in spending on different interventions, which is believed to undermine the level-playing field within the EU.

During both the negotiations and the implementation of the new CAP, balancing objectives of long-term production, farm support, innovation and sustainability, while ensuring a level of commonality across Member States, is seen as one of the main challenges for the Netherlands.

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