EU farm policy talks advance, funding remains undecided

The Council of the European Union agreed a partial negotiating position on the Common Agricultural Policy after 2027 on 26 October, backing more targeted support for active and young farmers while leaving the budget unsettled. The position sets out how member states want the future framework to work. It is not the final law governing farm payments.

The Council announcement places the proposal within negotiations on the EU's long-term budget for 2028 to 2034. Financial questions and issues shared across that budget remain outside this agreement. The presidency can now use the position to negotiate the regulation's final shape with the European Parliament.

Who would receive farm support

A proposed degressive area-based income support scheme, known as DABIS, would simplify the existing payment system while allowing support to reflect individual farms' circumstances. The Council wants funding directed towards farmers carrying out agricultural activity, with particular attention to young farmers and smaller farms.

Member states would be required to define an active farmer, although they would retain room to adapt that definition to national circumstances. The Council describes active farmers as those engaged in a minimum level of agricultural activity. That combination would make the definition compulsory without imposing one identical national test everywhere.

The Council also added an optional redistributive mechanism within DABIS. It would resemble the redistributive income support mechanism used in the current CAP programme. However, the rules governing reductions in support and payment caps have not been settled. Those decisions remain part of the wider budget discussions, rather than this partial farm-policy agreement.

For young farmers, the position would require member states to provide higher DABIS support and assistance in setting up businesses. Access to training and advice would accompany that help. Governments would also have to prepare a generational-renewal strategy and a starter pack combining measures to support people entering farming.

Environmental conditions and crisis help

A proposed farm-stewardship framework would combine common requirements for receiving support with incentives for practices that protect the environment. The Council identifies biodiversity measures and protection of watercourses as examples. Its position seeks common environmental ambition while allowing delivery to reflect different farming systems and local conditions.

Risk management would receive support through tools such as insurance protection, alongside investment in climate mitigation and adaptation. The framework would also allow member states to make crisis payments following natural disasters or adverse climatic events. Catastrophic events caused by animal and plant diseases would be covered too.

Farm relief services would be optional. A member state choosing to establish them could help farmers obtain replacement workers when illness prevents them from working, or when they take leave for childbirth or childcare. This is a proposed option for national implementation, not an announcement that a service is already available across the EU.

The position also retains support for rural areas facing disadvantages. Examples include helping farms diversify through agrotourism and supporting innovation or digitalisation. These rural measures sit alongside income support, rather than limiting the proposed framework to payments based on agricultural area.

The funding decision is still ahead

The proposed budget structure would bring existing EU funds into national and regional partnership plans. Each member state would prepare one comprehensive plan instead of the separate programmes now used for agriculture and other policy areas. CAP funding would mostly be governed by the regulation establishing those partnership plans.

For agriculture, this would mean moving away from the current two-pillar arrangement, comprising the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund and the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development. The funds would come together in one structure, while retaining CAP tools and interventions. Some related provisions already appear in the Council's partial position on the partnership-plan regulation.

The Commission has proposed setting aside around €300 billion for CAP income support and crisis measures. That figure is a proposal, not a sum agreed by this Council position. The final ringfenced amount will be decided in the overall budget negotiations, with further support envisaged through national and regional plans.

The 26 October position concerns the proposed CAP framework, one of two agricultural legislative proposals adopted by the Commission on 16 July 2025. It is separate from the Council's partial position on the common market organisation regulation, reached on 19 October. Parliamentary negotiations and the wider budget agreement remain necessary to settle the final framework and its funding.

Source material: Council of the European Union, 26 October 2026. © European Union, 2026. This article is an independently rewritten summary of the announcement.