Recent Council changes to ‘conditionality’ for CAP direct payments severely weaken what the agricultural sector could deliver for the environment and climate in the next 7 years. This is difficult to justify and is a poor foundation for demanding the budget to be maintained.

Those of us with long memories of CAP reforms know that there can be many dramas, dead ends and diversions along the way. Nonetheless, there has been a discernible direction of travel for two decades or more.

The European Commission launched its long expected Communication on ‘the Future of Food and Farming’ on 29 November. Here's IEEP's initial reaction.

Key messages from the DG AGRI Outlook conference 2016.

A significant injection of money was agreed for ‘green’ farming practices under the recent CAP reform. This report examines the environmental impact these measures are likely to have on the ground and concludes that Member States’ implementation choices appear to have much diminished the chances of the greening measures delivering significant additional environmental benefits.