Council and Parliament strike deal to simplify Common Agricultural Policy

Today, the Council presidency and European Parliament’s negotiators reached a provisional agreement on simplifying the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The aim is to boost the competitiveness of the European agriculture by cutting red tape, supporting farmers, including small farmers and business start-ups, encouraging innovation and boosting productivity.

Marie Bjerre, Minister for European Affairs of Denmark

Today we took a big step to keep our promise to make EU agricultural rules simpler. It’s important to make farming easier in Europe because this will help the agricultural industry grow and become stronger – boosting the sector’s competitiveness across Europe. Therefore, it has been a priority for the Danish presidency to reduce extra work and get rid of unnecessary rules for farmers and member states. I’m happy we quickly agreed with the Parliament on this important plan.

Jacob Jensen, Minister for Food, Agriculture and Fisheries of Denmark

The agreement is an important step in the direction of simplification of the Common Agricultural Policy. It not only contributes to the competitiveness of our farmers; it also makes it easier to deliver on our green ambitions, by giving farmers and member states more flexibility in the implementation of green requirements. The Danish presidency will continue to focus on simplification for farmers in the negotiations on the Common Agricultural Policy after 2027.

These simplification measures could lead to significant reductions in administrative costs for both farmers and national administrations. According to the Commission’s initial assessment, they could lead to annual savings of up to €1.6 billion for farmers and more than €200 million for member states’ administrations.

The revised acts form the so-called ‘Omnibus III’ proposed by the Commission in May 2025. The package contains amendments to the strategic plan regulation (SPR) and the ‘horizontal’ regulation on the Common Agricultural Policy.

Main elements of the agreement

The provisional agreement maintains the general thrust of the Commission proposal in support of the following objectives:

• easing the administrative burden for farmers and administrations
• increasing the payments to small farmers and simplifying the rules on conditionality, in particular for organic farms
• reducing the on-the-spot checks and deleting of the annual performance clearance

The agreement also maintains the Commission proposal to allow member states providing crisis payments to active farmers that are affected by natural disasters, adverse climatic events or catastrophic events. Such payments will ensure continuity of the agricultural activity of the affected farmers.

Moreover, the provisional agreement improves the following elements of the Commission proposal:

• gives flexibility to member states to decide to what extent partially organic farms could be considered to fulfil certain environmental standards, the so-called GAECs (good agricultural and environmental conditions)
• improves the possibility for farmers to benefit from risk management tools
• increases the percentage rate for advanced direct payments

Next steps

The provisional agreement must now be confirmed by the Council and the European Parliament before the legislative act is formally adopted by the co-legislators.

Background

The simplification package “Omnibus III” on agriculture is part of a broader political objective of enhancing EU competitiveness, by reducing businesses’ administrative burden and creating more favourable conditions for them to operate in the EU. This simplification drive is conducted in response to the impetus from the European Council (March 2023 Conclusions, 2024-2029 Strategic Agenda) that called for simplifying the general regulatory environment and reducing the administrative burden. On 20 March 2025, the European Council in its conclusions urged the co-legislators to take work forward on the Omnibus simplification packages as a matter of priority and with a high level of ambition.

• Draft regulation on CAP simplification, Council mandate, 3 September 2025 
• Regulation amending regulation (EU) 2021/2115 as regards the conditionality system, types of intervention in the form of direct payment, types of intervention in certain sectors and rural development and annual performance reports and regulation (EU) 2021/2116 as regards data and interoperability governance, suspensions of payments annual performance clearance and controls and penalties, Commission proposal, 14 May 2025 
• Simplification of EU rules (background information)

• The common agriculture policy explained (background information)

https://www.consilium.europa.eu