Brussels: The fight over Europe’s next farm budget sharpened this summer as farmers, lawmakers and the European Commission clashed over a plan to fold agricultural funding into a single national pot. The Commission wants to reshape the Common Agricultural Policy inside its 2028 to 2034 budget, and the farm budget question has become the most contested piece of the whole negotiation.

At the heart of the row sits the Commission’s proposal to merge the CAP with regional and other spending in one broad fund managed through single national plans. Brussels presents the change as simplification and argues that member states would gain flexibility to target money where it matters most. Critics read it as renationalisation that would erode the common core of the policy.

Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen has tried to reassure the sector. He confirmed a ringfence of at least €300 billion for income support and crisis management, around 80% of the CAP envelope, and framed that figure as a floor rather than a ceiling. The Commission also proposed a new Unity Safety Net worth €6.3 billion to roughly double the existing agricultural crisis reserve.

Farm groups remain unconvinced. The lobby Copa-Cogeca accuses the Commission of concealed cuts and warns that a single fund would dilute the dedicated instruments farmers rely on. The group launched a petition urging Brussels to protect the farm budget, and it staged a protest it branded European Agriculture’s Black Wednesday.

The European Parliament has lined up alongside the farmers. Its agriculture committee adopted a report rejecting the single fund approach, and members told the Commission plainly that the idea is unacceptable where agriculture is concerned. The Parliament’s legislative train now tracks the file as one of the budget’s flashpoints.

The numbers explain the anxiety. The Commission’s proposal trimmed agriculture’s share of a record overall budget, even as ministers described the funds as ringfenced. The European Court of Auditors sharpened the sector’s fears, warning that the new design risks uncertainty and delays in getting money to farmers.

Environmental campaigners approach the plan from the opposite direction. Groups such as the European Environmental Bureau argue that handing member states a near blank cheque threatens the green conditions attached to the current CAP. They fear looser rules will weaken incentives for sustainable farming just as climate pressure on harvests grows.

The Commission set out its thinking in a statement on the next chapter for the CAP, promising a simpler and more responsive policy. Yet with farmers, auditors, environmentalists and a large bloc in Parliament all pressing for changes, the farm budget looks set to dominate Europe’s budget talks well into next year before any deal emerges.