Cora Petrick and Nikolai Pushkarev are associated with the Think Tank Agora Agriculture based in Germany and Brussels.
The proposed reduction in earmarked funding for agriculture in the EU’s next budget has generated significant controversy. Yet, financial pressure on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is not new. Adjusted for inflation and per hectare of agricultural land, the CAP budget has declined by about 40 percent over the past 25 years, as shown in the figure below.
This downward trend could continue in the next budgetary period. Under current proposals, the minimum annual CAP budget per hectare from 2028 onward would be about half the funding level in 2000. The final allocation of EU funding for the CAP will depend on national decisions and the size of the overall EU budget. Even if the CAP budget ultimately turns out to be higher than initially proposed, it is unlikely to reverse the long-term decline.… Read the rest