Today, the Council gave its final green light on the simplification of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The aim is to boost the competitiveness of the European agriculture by cutting red tape, supporting farmers, including small farmers and business start-ups, encouraging innovation and boosting productivity.
| “Today, we delivered once more on our simplification agenda by making EU rules simpler and easier for our farmers and national administrations. Getting rid of unnecessary rules for farmers and member states has been a priority for the Danish presidency. This will help the agricultural sector grow and become stronger – boosting the sector’s competitiveness across Europe.” |
| — Marie Bjerre, Minister for European affairs of Denmark |
| “This revision is an important step in the direction of simplification of the common agricultural policy. It not only contributes to the competitiveness of our farmers; it also makes it easier to deliver on our green ambitions, by giving farmers and member states more flexibility in the implementation of green requirements. I am very happy that we could approve the package before the end of the Danish presidency.” |
| — Jacob Jensen, Minister of food, agriculture and fisheries of Denmark |
The simplification measures could lead to significant reductions in administrative costs for both farmers and national administrations. According to the Commission’s initial assessment, they could lead to annual savings of up to €1.6 billion for farmers and more than €200 million for member states’ administrations.
The revised law forms the so-called ‘Omnibus III’ legislative package proposed by the Commission in May 2025. The package contains amendments to the strategic plan regulation (SPR) and the ‘horizontal’ regulation on the Common Agricultural Policy. It is the second of a series of simplification files on which co-legislators reach agreement in a record time following “Omnibus II” adopted by the Council last week.
Main elements of the new simplification measures
The simplification measures aim to:
- ease the administrative burden for farmers and administrations
- increase the payments to small farmers and simplify the rules on conditionality, in particular for organic farms
- reduce the on-the-spot checks and delete the annual performance clearance
The revised legislation allows member states to provide crisis payments to active farmers that are affected by natural disasters, adverse climatic events or catastrophic events. Such payments will ensure continuity of the agricultural activity of the affected farmers.
Finally, among other improvements, the revised law:
- provides flexibility to member states to decide to what extent partially organic farms could be considered to fulfil certain environmental standards, the so-called GAECs (good agricultural and environmental conditions)
- improves the possibility for farmers to benefit from risk management tools, and
- increases the percentage rate for advanced direct payments
Next steps
The legislative act will be published in the EU’s official journal in the coming days and enter into force the day after its publication.
Background
The simplification package ‘Omnibus III’ on agriculture is part of a broader political objective of enhancing EU competitiveness, by reducing businesses’ administrative burden and creating more favourable conditions for them to operate in the EU. This simplification drive is conducted in response to the impetus from the European Council (March 2023 Conclusions, 2024-2029 Strategic Agenda) that called for simplifying the general regulatory environment and reducing the administrative burden. On 20 March 2025, the European Council in its conclusions urged the co-legislators to take work forward on the Omnibus simplification packages as a matter of priority and with a high level of ambition.
O artigo foi publicado originalmente em Conselho Europeu.
