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August 9, 2026

Newsletter

The European Post

Policy • Diplomacy • Strategic Insight

LATEST
New EU Gas Market Rules Take Effect With Consumer SafeguardsDeforestation Regulation Holds Its December Deadline Despite CutsDigital Omnibus Delays Europe’s High-Risk AI Deadline to 2027Europe’s Schools Confront a Widening Basic Skills GapRule of Law Report Finds Progress but Trust Still LagsIRIS2 Gains 66 Satellites as Brussels Signs the Rollout DealNature Restoration Plans Come Due as Member States Race a DeadlineECB Rates Hold at 2.25 Percent as Frankfurt Waits on the DataEU Budget Talks Turn to Cohesion as Ireland Takes OverWildfire Response Stretches Europe’s Emergency Fleet ThinCan Europe’s Quantum Plan Match Its Big Ambitions?Armenia Edges West as Moscow’s Grip Slips AwayEurope Inherits the World’s Aid Bill It Cannot Fully PayAir Passenger Rights Get Their First Overhaul in Two DecadesErasmus Opens a 5 Billion Euro Round for Skills and MobilityCeuta Crisis Pushes the EU Toward Faster Migrant ReturnsBulky Parcels Face a Packaging Crackdown From August 12Can Europe Build Its Drone Wall Before 2030 Arrives?Indonesia’s Trade Deal With Europe Nears Its Final SignatureEurope Leans on Beijing to Keep Climate Talks Alive Before AntalyaNew EU Gas Market Rules Take Effect With Consumer SafeguardsDeforestation Regulation Holds Its December Deadline Despite CutsDigital Omnibus Delays Europe’s High-Risk AI Deadline to 2027Europe’s Schools Confront a Widening Basic Skills GapRule of Law Report Finds Progress but Trust Still LagsIRIS2 Gains 66 Satellites as Brussels Signs the Rollout DealNature Restoration Plans Come Due as Member States Race a DeadlineECB Rates Hold at 2.25 Percent as Frankfurt Waits on the DataEU Budget Talks Turn to Cohesion as Ireland Takes OverWildfire Response Stretches Europe’s Emergency Fleet ThinCan Europe’s Quantum Plan Match Its Big Ambitions?Armenia Edges West as Moscow’s Grip Slips AwayEurope Inherits the World’s Aid Bill It Cannot Fully PayAir Passenger Rights Get Their First Overhaul in Two DecadesErasmus Opens a 5 Billion Euro Round for Skills and MobilityCeuta Crisis Pushes the EU Toward Faster Migrant ReturnsBulky Parcels Face a Packaging Crackdown From August 12Can Europe Build Its Drone Wall Before 2030 Arrives?Indonesia’s Trade Deal With Europe Nears Its Final SignatureEurope Leans on Beijing to Keep Climate Talks Alive Before Antalya

Brussels Faces Farmer Backlash Over a Single Budget Fund

Umar Nurmagomedov
Regulatory Correspondent, Agriculture and Food Security

Brussels: Europe’s largest farm lobby launched its first-ever petition on 19 June 2026, escalating a fight over the Common Agricultural Policy budget after the European Commission proposed folding farm funding into a single national spending pot from 2028. Copa and Cogeca, which represent millions of EU farmers and agri-cooperatives, say the plan would dilute the CAP budget and threaten food security across the bloc.

The petition, hosted at nosecuritywithoutcap.eu, asks Brussels to keep a ring-fenced, two-pillar farm budget rather than merging it with regional, social and other programmes in the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF). The dispute has simmered since the Commission unveiled its budget blueprint in July 2025.

What farmers are demanding

Copa and Cogeca set out a short list of demands aimed at the Commission and national capitals.

  • A specific, increased and inflation-adjusted CAP budget line in the next MFF.
  • Preservation of the policy’s two-pillar structure of direct income support and rural development.
  • Guaranteed direct payments for active, professional farmers.
  • No dilution of farm money into a general fund where it competes with unrelated priorities.

“The CAP must maintain its integrity, with a two-pillar financial structure and a clear, specific, inflation-adjusted budget line in the next Multiannual Financial Framework,” the organisations said in setting out their red lines.

Why the budget structure matters

Under the Commission’s proposal, the CAP would lose its standalone budget and sit inside new national and regional partnership funds, with only some measures ring-fenced. Farm groups warn that arrangement would pit income support against defence, migration and cohesion spending, leading to a de facto cut.

The stakes are concrete. The CAP has long been one of the EU’s biggest spending lines, and any reshaping of the CAP budget ripples through farm incomes, food prices and rural employment. Copa and Cogeca argue that uncertainty alone is already destabilising investment decisions on farms.

How Parliament has responded

Lawmakers have largely sided with farmers on the structural question. The European Parliament adopted its position in September 2025 opposing the merger of agricultural funding with other policy areas and calling for a larger, stand-alone agriculture budget with guaranteed income support. The Commission’s own figures show the farm share of the proposed record budget shrinking even where money is ring-fenced, a point the Commission’s agriculture department has had to defend.

What happens next

The petition is designed to pressure negotiators as MFF talks intensify through 2026 and 2027. Copa and Cogeca have warned that continued inaction could trigger fresh farmer mobilisations at the European level, echoing the tractor protests that swept Brussels and other capitals over the past two years.

Background

Farm anger has been building since early 2024, when protests over red tape, environmental rules and cheap imports forced the Commission into a series of concessions. The 2028 to 2034 reform reopens the most sensitive question of all: how much money agriculture gets and on what terms. By turning to a petition for the first time, Copa and Cogeca signalled that the CAP budget fight has moved from technical lobbying to a public campaign. With the MFF still unresolved, the coming months will test whether farmers can hold the line on a dedicated farm budget or watch it absorbed into a larger fund.

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