Sector & service specialists

Agriculture has always been at the heart of European politics, and 2026 is proving no exception. Almost 50% of EU territory is farmland. Agriculture and food-related industries provide over 44 million jobs, including 20 million within agriculture itself. The sector’s importance to land management, food security, and rural employment means it commands a disproportionate share of political attention relative to its share of GDP. 

The current CAP runs to 2027 with a budget of €386.6 billion. Negotiations for the post-2027 CAP are already live and deeply contested. The Commission’s Vision for Agriculture and Food shifted the agenda significantly – from the sustainability-first Farm to Fork strategy toward competitiveness, food security, and simplification. In April 2026, EU agriculture ministers clashed over a proposed ‘digressive area-based income support’ mechanism that would cap payments to larger farms. The new MFF proposed by the Commission allocates €300 billion to farmer income support – a real-terms cut of around 30% compared to the current period – provoking fury from farming organisations, who described the announcement as ‘Black Wednesday of European agriculture.’ 

The EU-Mercosur Partnership Agreement, provisionally applied since 1 May 2026 after 25 years of negotiations, is the defining trade event of the agricultural year. Council endorsed it in January 2026 by 21 to 5 – with France, Austria, Poland, Ireland, and Hungary voting against. Farmers across Europe have protested vigorously, citing concerns about beef, poultry, and sugar imports from producers not subject to equivalent EU standards. The European Parliament is pursuing a parallel challenge through the European Court of Justice on the agreement’s provisional application, potentially delaying full ratification by two years. 

Ukraine continues to cast a long shadow. Eastern European farmers remain frustrated by Ukrainian agricultural imports, and the temporary suspension of duties agreed by Parliament includes an emergency brake mechanism. Russia’s war has accelerated the shift toward food security and strategic autonomy as primary CAP goals, at the expense of the environmental conditionalities that defined the Farm to Fork era. The pendulum has swung: the new Commission has twice simplified or weakened environmental conditions under the CAP since 2024, and the pesticide reduction regulation remains stalled.