Seven months of intense behind-the-scenes discussions have culminated in a landmark agreement on the future of Europe’s agriculture policy, potentially paving the way for a more sustainable food production model. This outcome, hailed as a significant shift by environmental groups, signifies a broad acceptance – even from the industrial farming lobby – of the need for a dramatic change after six decades of the Common Agricultural Policy.
The agreement, detailed in a 110-page report published today, is the result of a ‘strategic dialogue’ launched last year in response to widespread protests across Europe. The dialogue brought together NGOs, farmers’ unions, and lobbyists representing both industrial and organic agriculture sectors. The report was unanimously endorsed, marking a turning point in the debate.
“This agreement is not just a milestone, but hopefully a game-changer,” said Ariel Brunner, director of BirdLife Europe, one of the environmental groups involved in the talks. “After months of intense negotiations, we’ve finally reached a turning point where, despite the differing interests and politics, there’s a collective recognition that the status quo simply isn’t an option.”
The agreement signals a return to “normal politics” after the sometimes violent protests that forced European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen to backpedal on certain aspects of the Green Deal, including a proposal to halve pesticide use and easing environmental controls. “Ultimately, the problems of the farmers will not be solved by telling them that reality will go away, or by whipping that hatred against environmentalists,” Brunner said.
Presenting the report in Brussels, von der Leyen announced it would feed into a “road map” – officially a ‘Vision for Agriculture and Food’ – to be published within the first hundred days of her second five-year mandate, starting in November.
Greenpeace, another participant in the dialogue process, highlighted several positive aspects of the report, describing it as a “fundamental rethink” of Europe’s approach to food production. A key recommendation is to better target Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) funding, which currently represents nearly a third of the EU budget. The report proposes that payments to farmers should be based on genuine need rather than the area farmed. It also calls for a “substantial annual increase” in the portion of direct payments linked to environmental measures, raising the current 32% allocation.
“It’s clear that subsidising rich landowners and choking the countryside with the excrement of millions of suffering pigs and cows isn’t helping the majority of farmers,” said Marco Contiero, agricultural policy director at Greenpeace EU. “The EU must stop bankrolling mega-farms that pollute our rivers and drive droughts and floods, and instead help those farmers who are struggling, but making an effort to restore nature and provide for healthier diets,” Contiero said.
Contiero praised the dialogue process, which involved numerous working group meetings and seven full plenary sessions, culminating in an intensive round-the-clock effort last week to achieve consensus on the final report. Unlike the often divisive public discourse, unsubstantiated claims could be immediately “put under scrutiny”, leading to an outcome that was “serious, robust, and based on evidence”, Contiero said.
The agreement offers a glimmer of hope for conservationists, as it does not call for a rollback of key nature protection legislation. In fact, it concludes that governments should fully implement the EU Birds and Habitats Directives, the Water Framework and Nitrates Directives (the latter behind rolling protests in the intensively farmed Netherlands) – and the recently adopted Nature Restoration Law, which the centre-right European People’s Party attempted to block in the European Parliament.
The report breaks new ground in EU and national policy making by recognizing the need for a reduction in meat consumption, with citizens encouraged to derive more of their protein from plants. However, it remains a compromise, with the European Environmental Bureau describing the language on moving away from industrial farming as “timid.”
Despite this, Faustine Bas-Defossez, the NGO umbrella group’s nature, health and environment director, sees this as a “pivotal moment” in EU farming policy. “This starts with an unequivocal call to overhaul the EU’s archaic farm subsidies policy to focus precious public funds on rewarding nature- and climate-friendly farming outcomes and redirecting funds to support the farmers in genuine need, which would end decades of wasteful, unfair subsidies that benefitted the largest farms at the expense of everyone else and the environment,” Bas-Defossez said.
The effectiveness of this agreement in ushering in a true transformation of agricultural policy making in Brussels remains to be seen. The key test will be the ‘vision’ paper expected early next year.
The traditional opponent of the green camp – the powerful farming lobby groups Copa and Cogeca – commended the “deliberative approach” to producing the report, one that involved all stakeholders. They welcomed in particular the recommendations for a ‘temporary Just Transition Fund’ and ‘a well-resourced nature restoration fund’ outside the scope of CAP funding to support farmers in the transition.
However, the industrial farming lobby was also cautious in its response. “Many stakeholders will share their views on this report in the coming days and weeks, and the Commission must listen to them,” said Copa President Christiane Lambert.
