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Transforming EU land use and the CAP: a post-2024 vision

AUTHORS: David Baldock, Harriet Bradley

The Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) is pleased to announce a new policy vision to transform EU land use and the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). This paper presents a new vision by IEEP and partners to transform EU land use and the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in the coming decade.

Discussions are getting underway on the post-2027 CAP—covering the period up to 2034—with the European Commission’s proposals expected in July 2025. These will be drawn up by a new EU administration following the 2024 EU elections.  

Recent evidence of escalating climate change has underlined the importance of achieving more rapid progress to sustainability and resilience in the critical European agrifood and land use sectors. A very significant contribution from these sectors will be essential for meeting a range of sustainability goals and commitments between 2030 and 2050 —including on climate, biodiversity, and natural resource use—along with adapting to the impacts of extreme weather.  

A transition of EU agriculture and land use is needed as part of a wider transformation of EU food systems, geared towards meeting sustainability goals whilst also ensuring viable businesses and vibrant rural areas. Amongst the most crucial group of policies are those that provide funding for rural areas, with the CAP being the largest and most central to guiding the direction of travel. 

In this context our vision calls for deeper changes to the CAP and the EU budget, which has not delivered sufficient action to date. The paper identifies four priorities for funding in the next decade to support a transition to a sustainable and resilient agriculture and land use sector in the EU:

  • Transitional aid to support resilient and sustainable future business models
  • Funding for ongoing provision of environmental services and public goods
  • Advice, training and stakeholder engagement
  • Research and innovation

There are several ways to deliver this in practice. Due to the lock ins and path dependencies in the CAP, significant departures from the status quo need to be considered in advance of the 2028-34 MFF negotiations. Our vision puts forward one option of creating new sustainable land management and fair transition fund in the post-2027 EU budget, overseen by climate and environmental authorities. This would be funded by a combination of transfers from the CAP and other funding sources, and operate alongside a ‘slimmed down’ more targeted version of the CAP.  

Read the vision paper.

The paper has been produced by IEEP with several members of the Think Sustainable Europe network of think tanks.

Photo by Gautier Pfeiffer on Unsplash

The full recording of the launch event is available on our YouTube channel, in two parts: PART 1 (introduction and panel discussion) and PART 2 (vision presentation and Q&A). You can also look at the Twitter thread for quotes from the speakers here.

Files to download

Transforming EU land use and the CAP: a post-2024 vision (IEEP 2023)

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