Campaigners warn of a lack of a proper impact assessment, and negative consequences for nature and climate
At a glance
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The European Commission has published proposals aimed at cutting red tape imposed by the Common Agricultural Policy
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The EU executive says the cuts to bureaucracy could put up to €1.6bn a year in farmers’ pockets and €210mn in the coffers of national administrations
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Environmental non-governmental organisations have questioned why the proposals suggest removing links between the CAP and new environmental and climate legislation. This means national CAP plans would not be required to be coherent with, or contribute to, the Nature Restoration Law
The European Commission published its latest omnibus proposal on Wednesday aimed at cutting red tape imposed by the Common Agricultural Policy. Environmental campaigners say the plans go beyond simplification and jeopardise measures to reduce emissions and protect and restore nature.
Changes to the CAP are nothing new. The EU’s farming policy has undergone various iterations since it was created in 1962 to feed a growing population after the second world war.
This time the buzz words are “simplification, competitiveness, resilience and digitalisation”, with the commission forecasting the cuts to bureaucracy could put up to €1.6bn a year in farmers’ pockets and €210mn in the coffers of national administrations.
The proposed changes include simplified payment schemes for small farmers, simplified environmental requirements and a reduction in overlaps with national rules. For example, farms certified nationally as organic will automatically be considered as meeting some of the EU’s environmental requirements for funding.
On-farm controls will also be streamlined through the use of satellite and other technology and on-the-spot checks limited to one a year per farm.
Presenting the package, EU trade commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said the aim was “to help the agricultural sector concentrate on farming not forms”.
The commission says the proposal responds to the expectations of the farming community and repeated calls from EU member states to address administrative burdens and bottlenecks in the CAP. Feedback from farmers, national administrations and non-profits was taken into consideration, it insists.
Lack of impact assessment
However, much as has happened with the omnibus aimed at simplifying EU sustainability reporting and due diligence rules, the commission has failed to carry out a thorough impact assessment before publishing its proposals.
“Given the urgent need to put forward measures to address the identified problems, it has not been possible to prepare a full impact assessment,” states the commission proposal, adding that it has prepared a staff working document assessing the administrative cost reduction.
Any benefits to farmers or nature that would be lost if these plans were put into practice have, once again, not been costed, however. “The extent of the achievement of reduced costs, benefits and their distribution will largely depend on the choices made by member states,” says the EU executive.
Given the urgent need to put forward measures to address the identified problems, it has not been possible to prepare a full impact assessment
“Without sufficient impact assessment or public consultation, the commission has yet again casually done away with nature and climate protections in Europe’s largest budget, the CAP,” says Théo Paquet, senior policy officer for agriculture at the non-profit European Environmental Bureau.
“Such short-sighted decisions will not only hinder farm resilience due to the many benefits provided by healthy ecosystems, but brings the legitimacy of the CAP into question as it strays further from its environmental and climate objectives.”
No link between CAP and Nature Restoration Law
One change about which the EEB is most concerned is the removal of links between the CAP and new environmental and climate legislation. In concrete terms, this means that national CAP plans will not be required to be coherent with, or contribute to, the Nature Restoration Law.
Adopted in June 2024, the law aims to restore at least 20 per cent of EU land and sea areas by 2030, and all ecosystems in need of restoration by 2050.
The EEB says ending the need to link the CAP to new environmental laws is “a step backwards in the EU’s efforts to deliver a greener CAP and goes against the requirements set out in the EU treaties to ensure that sustainability efforts are integrated across policies”.
The WWF suggests that by taking this step, the commission is giving agriculture “special treatment when it comes to complying with EU and international goals, such as decarbonisation and soil health”.
BirdLife Europe senior agriculture and land-use policy officer Marilda Dhaskali says the decision to break the link between farming policy and climate and environmental goals “isn’t just bad policymaking, it is a deeply anti-democratic decision that ignores advice from NGOs, the strategic dialogue [on agriculture], and even [the Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development’s] own staff”.
“And it flies in the face of scientific evidence urging us to take the opposite path to secure a thriving farming sector,” she adds.
Speaking to journalists ahead of the proposal launch, French MEP Pascal Canfin said there should be “consistency” between climate laws and national CAP plans.
Ending the need to link CAP to new environmental laws is a step backwards in the EU’s efforts to deliver a greener CAP and goes against the requirements set out in the EU treaties to ensure sustainability efforts are integrated across policies
Meghan Sapp, advocacy director at the European Alliance for Regenerative Agriculture, tells Sustainable Views, “reducing the burden on farmers when it comes to process and bureaucracy is of course a welcome improvement”.
“But it goes back to the adage, ‘it’s not the cow, it’s the how’,” she says. “Streamline data so that farmers don’t have to fill in the same thing five times, make it easier and faster to fill in paperwork — but that does not mean roll back on environmental leadership or existing environmental policies and targets that will increase the impacts of the climate crisis, instead of creating resilience along the entire agrifood supply chain.”
Such a result would be “short sightedness, bad business and against the supposed policy goals of competitiveness, preparedness and simplification”, says Sapp.
Farmers struggling with climate change
The legislative proposal will be submitted to the European parliament and the council for adoption. This is where the real danger lies as it “opens the door for anti-nature decision makers to get their hands on the CAP and scrap even more environmental protections,” says WWF European Policy Office sustainable food policy officer Giulia Riedo.
“This could accelerate the destruction of our landscapes and make life even more precarious for farmers who depend on healthy ecosystems to survive,” she adds.
On Wednesday, Ipsos and CropLife, the pesticides industry body, published the results of a survey carried out with farmers in France, Germany, Romania, Poland, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium and Ireland a year after the farmers’ protests took place in Brussels and across Europe.
They show 26 per cent of farmers are struggling because of climate change and extreme weather events. Thirty-four per cent say they encounter difficulties because of their bureaucratic and administrative workload. The biggest issue, encountered by 41 per cent of respondents, was increasing input prices or expenses.
Meanwhile, 20 per cent of the farmers interviewed say environmental constraints, including water shortages or poor soil health, would lead them to stop farming.