Month: July 2025

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What impact will degressivity and capping have?

In my previous post, I calculated the size of the amounts that could be allocated to the degressive area-based income support payment using the minimum and maximum amounts of aid per hectare proposed in the NRPF Regulation of 130 EUR and 240 EUR, respectively. This payment is intended to provide area-based income support for eligible hectares to farmers to address income needs. The purpose of the exercise was to examine the potential allocations to other CAP instruments, for example, agri-environment-climate actions, depending on how much Member States allocated to the degressive area-based payment.

The limitation of that calculation is that it assumed that all hectares would receive these amounts, and thus it took no account of the potential impact of degressivity and capping.… Read the rest

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Commission proposal could allow significant increase in CAP basic payments in many countries

Initial reactions to the publication of the Commission’s proposals for the next CAP and their budgetary implications focused on the overall reduction in the CAP budget for income support (the minimum €296 billion ring-fenced within the National and Regional Partnership Fund). In a previous post, I calculated this reduction to be 15% on a like-for-like basis compared to the current income support under the CAP in current prices. Making a comparison with the current total CAP budget will depend, in addition, on how much Member States will allocate to the non-income support elements of the CAP (including, for example, Co-operation projects (LEADER, EIPs) as well as Knowledge Exchange (AKIS)), which cannot be known at this stage.… Read the rest

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The distribution of direct payments in calendar year 2022

One of the striking proposals in the Commission’s CAP Regulation is the introduction of a much sharper degressivity in area-based income support payments starting with payments above €20,000 and with a ceiling of €100,000. It is thus appropriate that DG AGRI released its annual report on the distribution of CAP direct payments for the financial year 2023 just two days before the CAP proposal was announced as part of the 2028-2034 MFF package (in addition, the detailed figures are found in the Annex available here). It appears that the report was completed by October 2024. It is striking that the date of publication of these annual reports has been gradually slipping over time (the full set of reports with date of publication is available on the Commission web page on income support) which obviously limits their usefulness.… Read the rest

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Which countries gain or lose from the National and Regional Partnership Fund?

This is a revised version of the original post, to take account of the very helpful comment below which pointed out an error in my original Table 1. This is the strength of blog posting and I am very happy to make the correction.

One of the ideas stressed in the Commission’s presentation of the CAP budget proposal in the next MFF is that the €296 billion ring-fenced for CAP income support and some fisheries expenditure is a minimum amount. Member States will be able to add to that from their overall ceilings in the National and Regional Partnership Fund (NRPF) when they design their National and Regional Partnership Plans.… Read the rest

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The Commission’s CAP budget proposal in the next MFF

Please note that I have updated and revised some of the commentary in this post in a later one here. This later post gives a a more optimistic view of the likely size of the CAP budget though still with caveats. I would urge readers to also read this later post in conjunction with this one. I have left this post online for the record.

The publication of the Commission’s MFF proposals and related legislative proposals on Wednesday 16 July was chaotic, in part it seems because negotiations within the Commission went down to the wire right up to the afternoon of the day of publication.… Read the rest