Italy is set to receive €81.2 billion from the new EU budget, though the guaranteed allocation for the agricultural sector amounts to just €31 billion. A further €12.5 billion is currently in the hands of politicians — it is their decision that will determine what support farmers can count on after 2027. This is reported in an article by Top Agrar Polska.
Financial Architecture: Agriculture in the Shadow of Regional Policy
The new financial architecture of the common agricultural policy proposed by the European Commission for the years 2028-2034 was the subject of the “Workshop on the multiannual financial framework and the common agricultural policy for the years 2028-2034”, which took place during the meeting of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development on 9 April 2026.
Elsa Régnier, a researcher for agricultural and budgetary policy at the Paris-based think tank IDDRI (Institut du Développement Durable et des Relations Internationales), presented the structure of funds within the so-called first pillar. She stated explicitly that the European Commission’s proposal shifts a significant portion of the agricultural budget to a pool that member states can use at their discretion, combining agricultural spending with other policy objectives.
“In this first pillar, we have €865 billion. Part of it is pre-allocated to member states for regional partnership plans. Regarding national and regional partnership plans, we have a minimum budget for CAP interventions – €293 billion. We have a budget of €34 billion for migration and €453 billion – a fund that member states can freely allocate to various interventions, of course based on certain criteria and constraints,” Régnier explained.
This model assumes that the mandatory minimum for agricultural interventions constitutes a smaller portion of the total budget available under the partnership plans. The remaining €453 billion is allocated by national governments, operating within established criteria and constraints, which differs from the previous system of rigid sectoral envelopes.
Case Study: Italy as a Model for New Architecture
Using the example of Italy, the expert demonstrated that the real amount of support for the agricultural sector above the statutory minimum will depend on political decisions at the Member State level.
“Let’s look at Italy to illustrate how this budget is divided. Here, Italy has a budget of €81.2 billion, according to the Commission’s proposal. It must allocate at least €31 billion to the CAP. €2.6 billion for migration, and €34.7 billion, which can be freely allocated to various priorities. Additionally, the government can release €12.5 billion as a “flexibility amount” depending on the situation – crises, market changes, political decisions. In total, Italy can allocate up to €43.7 billion to the CAP from the beginning of the programming period if it decides to direct some of the funds from the flexible envelope to agriculture, €27 billion of which must be spent on the least developed regions, but this does not exclude CAP interventions.”
The presented distribution of funds shows that the government in Rome has nearly €12.7 billion of discretion (the difference between the minimum and maximum thresholds for the CAP). At the same time, the need to spend €27 billion in the least developed regions imposes an additional territorial constraint on the system, which must be taken into account when designing sectoral interventions. This structure changes the role of agricultural funds, making them part of a broader strategy for cohesion and regional development.
Article 14 and the flexibility quota: €46 billion thanks to Mercosur
Another element of the new proposal is the mechanism specified in Article 14, concerning the so-called flexibility amount . Elsa Régnier recalled that these rules were modified by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in direct connection with progress in negotiations on a trade agreement with Mercosur countries. Under this proposal, member states will be able to advance the allocation of €46 billion, which was originally intended as a reserve.
“And in the context of the negotiations with Mercosur, President von der Leyen proposed an amendment to Article 14 to offer member states the option of using two-thirds of these three-fifths. These amounts must be allocated to the revision of national and regional partnerships. Two-thirds of these three-fifths can be spent from the beginning of the period on interventions within the CAP or in rural areas, which will free up €46 billion. It is up to the member state to decide whether it wants to allocate this money to the CAP or rural development,” said the IDDRI representative.
The decision on whether these funds will directly support the agricultural sector or be directed towards general rural development remains with the national administration and requires a formal procedure for amending partnership plans.
New CAP management rules
Alan Matthews, Emeritus Professor of Common Agricultural Policy at Trinity College Dublin, acknowledged that the new model forces decentralization of decision-making, which in practice means weakening the common nature of agricultural policy. At the same time, he argued that the CAP was never truly common anyway:
“Many of you have spoken about the threat of renationalization. I will just say that this is a debate that is and has been ongoing regarding the current CAP. The level of payments per hectare of eligible areas varies from approximately €600 in Greece to €273 in Latvia. So we no longer have a truly uniform CAP, and this is worth considering when we talk about the flexibility that is actually to be increased in the Commission’s proposal,” the expert explained.
Professor Matthews also explained with disarming candor that differences in payments resulting from increased flexibility do not necessarily lead to competitive inequalities between farmers in EU countries:
“This greater flexibility does not necessarily mean distortion of competition. Any environmental protection measures that encourage farmers to switch to organic production, etc., actually limit the level of competition for farmers. This is not the case with DABIS payments (Decoupled Area-Based Income Support – the working name for new area payments, used in analyses – ed.), such as area subsidies, coupled payments, or degressivity mechanisms. If they are shaped differently in individual countries, they may lead to a violation of equal competition conditions.”
Payments per hectare and Ukraine’s accession to the EU
During the debate, members of the Agriculture Committee asked how the new rules for agricultural support in the European Union will affect the ability of individual farms to compete on the common market with large agricultural entities from Ukraine after its accession to the EU.
“How to reconcile this common CAP with the potential accession of Ukraine? What does the Commission want? What impact will Ukraine’s accession have on this new CAP?” asked Giles Pennelle (Patriots for Europe/France).
His concerns were also shared by Charles Goerens, an MP from Luxembourg from the liberal Renew Europe group: “Will the new CAP be more simplified or more bureaucratic? Will it be more resilient, or will we rather cede the field to big players like Ukraine?”
Expert Elsa Régnier answered evasively: “Ukraine’s accession is, of course, a difficult question, because there are many, many factors involved. These accession negotiations are, of course, still ongoing, so we don’t know exactly under what conditions and in what situation Ukraine will join the EU and when it will happen.”
Gijs Schilthuis, Director for Sustainable Development (Directorate B) at DG AGRI, representing the European Commission, remained silent on the matter. However, MEPs heard a very interesting comment from retired Professor Alan Matthews.
“A word on Ukraine. The Commission’s proposal, in my opinion, eliminates Ukraine as a potential source of problems in this agricultural area. Because there is a single formula for distributing funds to all countries, each country – including new ones like Ukraine – receives its share according to this formula and then decides for itself how much of this pool to allocate to agriculture . However, if we maintain the two-pillar model of the Common Agricultural Policy, with the current formula for allocating funds, then it is likely that the accession of a large country like Ukraine to hectare-based direct payments would indeed place a significant burden on the CAP “.
The new architecture of the EU budget presented in this context appears to be a pragmatic response to Ukraine’s planned accession to the European Union after 2028.
Criticism of the Commission’s proposal by The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development
The European Commission’s proposals were criticized by members of the European Parliament’s Agriculture Committee. Herbert Dorfmann (EPP, Italy), group coordinator in the AGRI Committee, emphasized that integrating the CAP with cohesion and migration funds into a single planning document forces regions to coordinate widely differing thematic areas.
“When we consider that the plans will be more flexible, it seems simpler for member states. But if we consider that we lump the CAP, the cohesion fund, migration, and regional funds into one basket, and all of this is covered by a single regional partnership plan, then planning across all sectors will become very complicated.”
Tomáš Kubín (PfE, Czech Republic) focused on the political consequences of the new fund architecture. He pointed to the potential competition for resources within member states.
“Regions will compete with each other. Within member states, politicians will compete over how to spend the money for common programs. Will there even be a common agricultural policy? There won’t be, dear friends. There will be no CAP. We will have regional programs, we will have member states that will decide everything on their own, and in reality, we will destroy what we have achieved over all these years.”
Farm profitability and food security
The workshop was summed up by the chairman of the meeting, Daniel Buda (EPP, Romania), vice-chair of the AGRI committee, who compared the reforms discussed with the economic situation of farms, pointing out the income gap between agriculture and other sectors of the economy.
“It’s absolutely crucial that we understand that all these discussions about the future of the CAP are discussions about food security. It must be said clearly that although we are fighting today to guarantee income subsidies for farmers, the real beneficiaries are consumers, all of us. Because can we tell young farmers to go into farming today if they are going to earn 40% less than in any other sector? Will anyone really decide to do that, knowing that no one will support them? We know that these people work 24 hours a day, struggle with drought, floods, and rainfall, and simply have to produce food for all of us. We can’t impose more responsibilities on them without giving them money. We need to support farmers to guarantee food security in this way. And that’s what today’s debate is all about.”
Source: Top Agrar Polska
