No. 34 The future of the Common Agricultural Policy 36 ANALYSIS AND PROSPECTIVE STUDIES CULTIVAR on decisions that will be adopted in a broader context and will therefore be discussed in the context of the General Affairs Council. For these reasons, the CAP reform will open up its negotiation process, which until now has been exclusively agricultural, to new institutional actors with different interests and ideas and, most likely, with different solutions regarding the policy measures to be adopted. This potential reduction in the weight of decisions made by institutions that have traditionally been associated with the interests of the agricultural sector will most likely diminish the influence of agricultural associations in future decision-making at EU level. States. Of these, the reaction I am most sensitive to concerns the reduced future coherence of policy measures that may result from greater autonomy for the different Member States in drawing up their respective partnership plans. I fear, however, that the rationale behind this defensive behaviour stems essentially from a huge lack of confidence in national and regional decision-making centres and a clear fear of a loss of influence at sectoral level. The most controversial issue in the EC proposals under discussion has been the CAP budget post-2027, with particular emphasis on a possible reduction in its amount compared to the 2021-2027 period, as well as the differences between Member States regarding the weight of the respective ring-fencing component. On the other hand, as the National and Regional Partnership Plans do not only concern the agricultural sector, their preparation will involve national, public and private entities with potentially conflicting interests, with particular emphasis on the allocation of funds that wiil be ... the CAP reform will open up its negotiation process, which until now has been exclusively agricultural, to new institutional actors with different interests and ideas and, most likely, with different solutions regarding the policy measuresto be adopted. The widespread opinion that the budget proposed by the EC for the CAP for the period 20282034 represents a break with the previous programming period stems from the assumption that the funds in question will only concern the ring-fencing component of the CAP, thus ignoring the possibility that Member States available outside the ring-fencing of the CAP and the less developed regions, which are proposed to represent around one third of the total financial envelope and which will vary significantly between Member States. Sympathising, in principle, with the idea of closer coordination between policies targeting the agricultural sector and rural areas, based on a sound Partnership Plan, and greater flexibility and autonomy for Member States in the allocation of available funds, I nevertheless recognise the risks that will be associated with the adoption of a Single Fund with these characteristics and understand some of the reactions that it has provoked in different Member can allocate part of the funds outside the CAP ringfencing and support for less developed regions to the CAP, which represents around one third of the total allocated to EU partnership plans. According to estimates presented by Alan Matthews in an October 2025 article entitled ‘Further reflections on CAP governance and budget’2, it can be concluded that all Member States will have the leeway to transfer the necessary funds so that the future CAP budget is at least equal to a budget capable of guaranteeing the corresponding 2027 level at current prices. 2 https://capreform.eu/further-reflections-on-cap-governance-and-budget/. See also Alan Matthews' article in this issue of Cultivar. [Editorial team's note]
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