On February 19, 2025, Executive Vice-President Fitto and Commissioner Christophe Hansen unveiled the long-awaited Communication on the EU Vision for Agriculture and Food, “for an attractive, competitive, resilient, future-oriented and fair agri-food system for current and future generations of farmers and agri-food operators”. The initiative falls within the broader Commission’s goal of strengthening competitiveness and enhancing simplification across all sectors, including agriculture.
The Vision for Agriculture and Food outlines a roadmap for future initiatives laying the groundwork for the direction of European agricultural and food policy over the next five years and beyond. It builds upon the recommendations contained in the Strategic Dialogue on the Future of EU Agriculture report, published in September 2024. The report, presented by Professor Strohschneider, was the result of the first-of-its-kind forum gathering agricultural representatives, stakeholders, NGOs and academia. The European Commission already envisaged a continuation of the dialogue with the farming community, the whole food supply chain and civil society through the creation of the European Board on Agriculture and Food, a High–level advisory group with 30 member organisations. In addition to this, the Communication foresees a review of the existing Civil Dialogue Groups.
More generally, the Vision is based on four fundamental objectives for 2040:
- An attractive and predictable agri-food sector where incomes enable farmers to thrive
- An agri-food sector that is competitive and resilient in the face of rising global competition and shocks
- A future proof agri-food sector that is functioning within planetary boundaries
- An agri-food sector that values food, fosters fair working and living conditions and vibrant and well-connected rural and coastal areas
The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) will remain a key instrument to support farmers’ income across the EU, with the Commission pushing for additional simplification and flexibility of the policy. The Vision highlights targeted support directed towards farmers actively engaged in food production, as well as a focus on generational renewal and young farmers. Enhanced measures such as degressivity and capping have also been underlined in the text. Overall, the Commission aims at orienting the future CAP away from conditionality towards more incentives. Farmers’ income will be supported via carbon farming and nature credits, and other financial opportunities are identified through the production of renewable energy. Still, as the discussions on the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) are ongoing, initial criticisms already point out the necessity to further discuss the CAP budget as well as additional financial resources needed to support new proposals. The first Commission proposal for the post-2027 CAP is expected this summer.
Given the latest geopolitical developments and global competition, the Vision foresees a more assertive stand in favour of the EU strategic autonomy and food sovereignty, consisting of a two-fold action. On the one hand, via global and bilateral cooperation, the text envisions a planned line of action towards deepening reciprocity among the Member States while strategically promoting and defending the exports of EU products. On the other hand, a competitive EU agrifood sector must be ensured with a stronger alignment of production standards applied to imported products. It is the case for pesticides, for which measures are expected in order to avoid allowing imported products containing the most hazardous pesticides banned in the EU for health and environmental reasons back in the Union territory. The same approach will be applied to animal welfare, with future legislative proposals required to ensure the same standards for products produced in the EU as those imported from third countries. The Vision additionally includes proposals on the revision of the existing animal welfare legislation, including its commitment to phase out cages, and opens to a possible proposal for targeted labelling in relation to animal welfare to address societal expectations.
With the broader objective of strengthening short food supply chains, the Commission announced an upcoming legal proposal to strengthen the role of public procurement and a targeted review of EU school schemes. Additional proposals will include an initiative to accelerate the access for biopesticides, implementation of the recommendations of the High-level Group on Wine throughout 2025 and a long-term vision for the EU livestock sector. EU dependencies on key import proteins supply and fertilisers will also be addressed. While the revision of the Unfair Trade Practices and Common Market Organisation regulation will continue, the reference to consumers policy is made mainly when it comes to access to trustworthy information.
Certain recommendations included in the Strategic Dialogue on the Future of EU Agriculture report were not followed up in the Commission’s Vision. Those include supporting a transition towards more plant-based food options, advancing towards sustainable food systems, including by enhancing sustainable healthy diets and food reformulation, updating EU food labelling legislation, evaluating marketing to children (by 2026), providing fiscal tools to make sustainable food more affordable. Instead, the Commission announced a yearly Food Dialogue to (re)discuss pressing food-related matters. To support this dialogue, the Commission will launch a study on the impact of the consumption of “ultra-processed foods”.
Connectivity in rural areas, digital systems, innovation and R&I will be the priorities of the Commission’ course of action for this mandate, as it hopes “to complete the legislative procedure for the Commission’s New Genomic Techniques (NGTs) proposal and to implement the legislation fast”. The new Bioeconomy Strategy, to be presented by the end of 2025, will also accelerate the commercialisation of bio-based and circular solutions.
What’s next?
Following the publication of the Competitiveness Compass, which reiterated the EU commitment to carbon neutrality by 2050 via simplification, other upcoming proposals will further shape agrifood related policies. The First Omnibus package on sustainability and the Second Omnibus package on investment simplification, both planned for 26 February 2025, as per the latest College agenda, will streamline various pieces of legislation. The simplification dimension will be directed towards the goal “of reducing administrative burdens by at least 25%, and at least 35% for SMEs”, including an annual plan of evaluations and fitness checks. The Clean Industrial Deal, planned for the same day, will then be at the heart of the EU collaborative plan for decarbonisation, sustainability and competitiveness, in the framework of the European Green Deal.
In the second quarter of 2025, the European Commission will then present the Common Agricultural Policy simplification package to “further address sources of complexity and excessive administrative burden for national administrations and farmers”.