National agricultural plans miss EU environmental targets, say European auditors

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) national strategic plans do not live up to the EU's environmental ambitions, according to a report by the European Court of Auditors, which recommended a more robust monitoring and evaluation systems for member states in the next CAP.

The plans for 2023-27 CAP implementation are "greener than in the previous CAP period, but do not match the EU’s ambitions for the climate and the environment," and "key elements for assessing green performance are missing," said the report published by the European Court of Auditors on Monday (30 September).

Increasing the room for maneuvre in implementing the CAP through the national strategic plans was one of the main changes in the 2021 CAP reform. However, the auditors remarked that the plans fall short of the goals set by the European Green Deal, in particular the Farm to Fork strategy.

That strategy, published in 2020, called for a 50% reduction in the use of pesticides by 2030, and by the same year a 20% decrease in the use of chemical fertilisers and a 25% increase in organic farmland.

The current CAP places environmental and climate objectives "at the heart of the policy," the European Commission pointed out in its response.

Member states, it added, are providing "partial information" on the CAP contribution to Green Deal objectives, because they are linked also to policies outside the CAP.

"The Commission will quantify the contribution" of the national strategic plans to the EU Green Deal targets "for greenhouse gas emissions, as well as assess the change in area under organic farming and landscape features in its report to the European Parliament and Council" due by the end of 2025,  the bloc's executive concluded.

Green requirements

The CAP 2023-27 provides for a reinforced green conditionality — the environmental agronomic requirements with which farmers must comply to have access to the subsidies.

But, according to the auditors, this reinforcement has "not been fully exploited" to achieve the green targets.

Member states instead used the flexibility allowed by the strategic plans "to reduce the applicability of some requirements or to delay their application".

Before the relaxation of green requirements by the EU in response to farmers' protests in early 2024, according to the audit many member states had already exempted certain beneficiaries from some of the obligations, or postponed green measures.

Eco-schemes, incentives for farmers to take up environmental measures on the ground, "were mostly a continuation of existing green farming practices," the audits carried out in Ireland and France showed. In other countries, such as Spain and Poland, no data was available to assess overall change.

Member states are calling for further flexibility to decrease the administrative burden of CAP implementation in general. At the Agrifish Council meeting on 23 September, EU ministers asked the Commission to consider 2023 and 2024 as a "learning period," for some performance indicators, so as not to penalise Member States that make errors in their mandatory annual performance reports, due by 15 February 2025.

Strengthening the monitoring framework

The auditors recommended that the Commission strengthens the future CAP monitoring framework on climate and environmental performance. But for the European Commission, this concerns legal provisions that will be negotiated in the future CAP, after 2027.

The executive said they were nevertheless committed to promoting the exchanges of “green” good practice in the plans between Member States, in terms of climate and the environment.

"A new study financed by the Commission will appraise best practices in terms of green strategies" in the national plans, it explains in its response to the auditors' report.

[Edited by Angelo Di Mambro and Owen Morgan]