Which objective(s) does the Commission pursue?

One of the key objectives of the CAP reform process was to improve the policy's governance by better reflecting the diversity that exists within EU agriculture, simplifying the CAP and implementing cost-efficient tools, and strengthening the focus on results.

The CAP proposals focused on the following objectives:

• to foster a smart, resilient and diversified agricultural sector ensuring food security;

• to bolster environmental care and climate action and to contribute to the environmental- and climate-related objectives of the Union;

• to strengthen the socio-economic fabric of rural areas.

Those objectives were complemented by the cross-cutting objective of modernising the sector by fostering and sharing of knowledge, innovation and digitalisation in agriculture and rural areas, and encouraging their uptake.

Estimated savings and benefits

The Commission proposals aimed for greater subsidiarity to ensure that rules are defined much closer to the daily reality of farmers and in a more targeted way, in line with real needs and local conditions. The shift away from a "one-size-fits-all" approach in the design of most of the tools of the CAP can be used by Member States to develop interventions that can contribute to the defined EU objectives in a much more efficient way than in the existing model.

The proposed model will improve the complementarity and synergies among all the interventions of the two pillars of the CAP. The unified strategic policy design (under a single set of objectives covering both pillars) aims to make sure that Member States carry out the assessment of needs and the design of the intervention logic in a holistic way, thus avoiding some inconsistencies and overlaps of the current policy leading to inefficient use of funds.

With a shift in focus from rules and compliance to results and performance, Commission audits will focus on general principles and systems, while the use of new technologies will simplify, speed-up and automate many of the administrative procedures. Meanwhile, reporting requirements for Member States administrations will be streamlined.

The Commission proposals foresee that farmers have improved access to impartial farm advice, through a farm advisory service that will be mandatory for Member States to provide, in addition to assistance in their applications for support.

This so-called ‘new delivery model’ also presents opportunities concerning the reduction of administrative burden: a substantially reduced number and depth of EU rules incentivises Member States to establish simpler rules and apply them in a more pragmatic way than today.

The impact assessment accompanying the legislative proposals quantified the estimated benefits in terms of reduction of administrative burden. Depending on the option examined in the impact assessment, the potential for administrative burden reduction for national administrations ranges between 5 and 8%, whereas it varies between 5 and 11% for individual beneficiaries. This translates into a cost reduction of €160 million to €240 million for administrations and €170 million to €410 million for individual beneficiaries. The greater effectiveness under increased subsidiarity and a shift from compliance to performance will lead to a higher administrative efficiency (value for money).

Finally, the new delivery model is an opportunity to substantially enlarge the role of evidence in the policy design of the CAP, since both the analysis presented by the Member States (in the CAP Plans) and the Commission assessment will need to be based on the latest available evidence.

Outcome of legislative procedure

The European Parliament and the Council largely supported the reform of the CAP based on new Strategic Plans covering support schemes in both the first and the second pillar. The future 28 strategic plans will replace the existing 118 rural development programmes, 65 sectoral strategies and 28 notifications per Member States for direct support.

These strategic plans have been developed on the basis of evidence and are focussed on ten specific objectives, along the lines proposed by the Commission. As proposed, the new acts introduced a result-based delivery system with its significant opportunities for efficiency gains at every management level.

The basic acts lay down common rules for the strategic plans as well as for the interventions Member States must develop to implement the policy. Member States tailored these interventions to their needs and control systems will be adapted. In a number of cases the level of prescription of these ‘types of interventions’ in the basic act is greater as compared to the Commission proposals. While this may reduce the flexibility for Member States, these changes were limited and do support a playing field. Under rural development policy, the existing 64 sub-measures have been replaced with 8 types of intervention, thus considerably contributing to simplification of the legislative framework.

The new basic acts require national administrations to step up the use of new technologies in the administration of the policy, which may contribute to simplification for final beneficiaries.

Estimated savings and benefits

The European Parliament and the Council did not present an analysis of the savings and benefits for final beneficiaries of their amendments to the CAP reform proposals. While the adopted amendments reduce flexibilities for Member States, their impact on costs savings and benefits are likely largely determined by the design of the strategic plans. In its Article 6(3), the CAP Strategic Plan Regulation requires Member States, with support of the Commission, to “take appropriate measures to reduce the administrative burden and ensure simplification in the implementation of the CAP”. Additionally, according to article 109 (2i) of the CAP Strategic Plan Regulation, Member States provided an explanation of how the interventions and elements common to several interventions contribute to simplification for final beneficiaries and reducing the administrative burden.

Implementation by Commission

The delegated and implementing powers granted to the Commission have considerably diminished with this reform of the CAP, thereby reducing not only the number, but also the level of detail of secondary legislation. Specifically the implementing act on the presentation of the content of the CAP Strategic Plans and the electronic data exchange system, on the calculation of common indicators related to outputs and results, puts in place simpler systems for Member States to manage and implement the plans.

Implementation by Member States

Member States have submitted their CAP Strategic Plans. Further to the receipt of Commission observations on these plans, Member States reviewed their plans. Each of the Strategic Plans has been approved by a Commission Implementing Decision in the second half of 2022.

Estimated savings and benefits

The reduction of administrative burden and cost savings will depend to a considerable extent on the choices made by Member States in the implementation of their CAP strategic plans. The Commission created an overview of the content of the observation letters, summarising key elements of the 28 proposed Plans and the related observations which were made for each country. A mapping study, providing an overview of the contribution of these plans to the specific objectives of the CAP, is foreseen in the second half of 2023.