The proposal includes significant flexibility in the requirements for access to aid, which will benefit a very large group of farmers and livestock farmers.

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Agriculture, Fisheries and Food sends the proposed modification of the CAP Strategic Plan

The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAPA) has today sent the Autonomous Communities, as Regional Management Authorities, a proposal to amend the Strategic Plan for the Common Agricultural Policy (PEPAC), which will serve as a basis for starting the informal dialogue with the European Commission.

The document, which has been discussed in technical meetings and at the meetings of the PEPAC coordination body held on 4 and 13 March, has been drawn up based on the proposals submitted by the Regional Management Authorities, as well as the contributions made by the professional farming organisations and agri-food cooperatives in recent months, and takes into account the experience of the first year of implementation of the plan. Its preparation has also taken into account the need to ensure the coherence of the Strategic Plan as a whole and the capacity to achieve the achievements and objectives set out in it.

The document includes important flexibilities for farmers and livestock farmers, in particular as regards enhanced cross-compliance and eco-regimes.

About enhanced cross-compliance, the proposal already incorporates the flexibilities included today by the European Commission in its proposal to amend the basic CAP regulations. This proposal is a clear step forward and responds to most of the requests made by Spain in recent months and at the Council of Agriculture Ministers on 26 February.

Thus, and using the greater subsidiarity granted to the Member States, it is proposed to make the requirements on Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions (GAEC) that farmers and stockbreeders must meet in order to be able to receive full CAP aid more flexible. In particular, flexibility is requested for those relating to tillage management (GAEC 5), standards for maintaining minimum soil cover (GAEC 6), crop rotation (GAEC 7) and it is proposed to remove the obligation to set aside part of the farm area for non-productive areas (GAEC 8).

In addition, it is proposed to make the design of eco-schemes significantly more flexible. These are aid schemes that reward farmers and stockbreeders who carry out practices that are beneficial to the climate and the environment. Among these flexibilities, it is worth highlighting the proposals made to encourage greater acceptance of practices in pasture areas by Cornish livestock farmers, and in particular sustainable mowing practices and islands of biodiversity.

Significant flexibility is proposed for plant and inert cover practices in woody crops, particularly in rainfed plantations, where it is more difficult to establish these covers. It will be allowed to establish these covers in alternating lanes, grazing in these lanes, and vertical tillage in certain periods.

The document submitted by the Ministry also includes numerous proposals for modification of the rural development interventions that have been presented by the Regional Management Authorities, ranging from the inclusion of new interventions, to changes in their design or financial allocations.

The final content and implementation of the set of proposals is conditional on the one hand on the approval of the modification of the PEPAC by the European Commission, and on the other hand on the adoption by the European Parliament and the Council of the text that has been adopted today by the European Commission.

The moment of application of each of the flexibilities will depend on the texts finally approved, although many of the new cross-compliance proposals will be applied retroactively from 1 January 2024, and will therefore already be effective for this year’s single application.

Process of amending the CAP Strategic Plan
The process for amending the PEPAC is described in Royal Decree 1046/2022 of 27 December, which regulates the governance of the PEPAC and the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF) and the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD), which in turn is based on the provisions of Regulation 2021/2115 on EU strategic plans.

Under this regulation, Member States may submit a request to the European Commission to amend their national strategy plans once per calendar year.

The amendment process starts with a first phase of informal dialogue between the Member State and the Commission, which aims to shorten the time taken to approve the formal request for amendments.

Once this phase has been completed, the PEPAC Managing Authority (General Secretariat for Agricultural Resources and Food Security) will submit the request for modification to the Coordination Body, which will have to decide to submit it to the Sectoral Conference on Agriculture and Rural Development, before its formal submission to the European Commission for final approval.