Agricultural Law

The Cap’S Transition To A Single Fund: Legal And Institutional Consequences

June 29, 2026

Background: The 2025 Commission package (COM([2025)] 565 and COM([2025)] 560) proposes a Single Fund (PNRF) for 2028–2034, merging CAP resources with other EU instruments and ending the traditional dual-pillar system. This raises fundamental questions on compliance with Articles 38–44 TFEU, the preservation of CAP’s functional autonomy, and the resilience of budgetary safeguards.

Material and methods: The article adopts a legal-dogmatic and comparative approach. It analyses EU primary law, the 2023–2027 CAP framework (Regulations 2021/2115–2117), and the Commission’s 2025 proposals (COM([2025)] 565, 560, 550, 545). Parliamentary and Council materials, Member State positions, and stakeholders’ documents (e.g. CEJA 2025, COPA–-COGECA) are reviewed. Given the scarcity of post-2027 academic literature, this work provides one of the first systematic legal-institutional assessments of the Single Fund.

Results: The analysis identifies tensions between simplification and integration, on the one hand, and the CAP’s legal “speciality” on the other. Formal safeguards (ring-fenced agricultural envelopes, accounting separation, performance monitoring) exist, but doubts remain about their durability in times of budgetary stress. Some stakeholders see the PNRF as risking “silent renationalisation,”, while others interpret it as subsidiarity in action, offering Member States flexibility to adapt interventions and overcome CAP’s compartmentalisation.

Conclusions: The reform is not merely technical but constitutional in impact. Its success depends on balancing innovation with continuity: only robust safeguards can ensure that the Single Fund preserves the CAP’s identity as a genuine common policy. Implemented with transparency and legal certainty, it could modernise agricultural governance; without such guarantees, it risks eroding the CAP’s distinctiveness and weakening its role in food security and sustainable rural development.

1. Introduction: the Single Fund, the PNRF and the PPNR

Since the very origins of European integration, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has represented one of the fundamental pillars of EU law. Its primary legal basis is enshrined in Articles 38––44 TFEU (European Union [EU], 2016), which establish objectives such as ensuring a fair standard of living for the agricultural community, stabilising markets, and guaranteeing secure supplies¹. From a financial perspective, the CAP has historically relied on a dual structure—— – EAGF for direct payments and market measures, and EAFRD for multiannual rural development— – designed to safeguard the earmarking of agricultural resources and the objectives of Article 39 TFEU. Building on (and partly reconfiguring) this architecture, the 2028–2034 reform proposes the creation of a European Single Fund officially named the “European Fund for Sustainable Prosperity and Security in the Economic, Territorial, Social, Rural and Maritime Fields,”, with an overall budget of €EUR 865 billion. The CAP component, allocated within this new framework, would amount to at least €EUR 294 billion, corresponding to around 20% of the total resources. This marks a significant reduction compared to the previous programming period, although Member States could increase the agricultural share through additional allocations² (Frascarelli, 2025b).

In institutional terms, the new Single Fund takes the form of the National and Regional Partnership Fund (PNRF), which would integrate not only the two traditional CAP instruments— – the EAGF and the EAFRD— – but also other Union funds such as the EMFAF, ERDF, and ESF+. To address concerns over dilution, the proposal retains internally earmarked “agricultural envelopes” (Palazzoni, 2025)³ to preserve sector-specific allocations.

Programming and implementation of the interventions would take place through the National and Regional Partnership Plans (PPNR), drawn up by the Member States and approved by the Commission, which would replace the current CAP Strategic Plans. These plans would determine the allocation of resources, the spending priorities and the monitoring systems, becoming the main instrument for linking agricultural policies with the broader Union objectives in the fields of cohesion, innovation and ecological transition.

The aim of this paper is to assess the legal consistency and operational feasibility of the Single Fund proposal (( – COM(2025) 565, read in conjunction with COM (2025) 560⁴) (European Commission, 2025c, 2025e, 2025f) – within EU primary law and CAP governance, and to identify plausible implementation scenarios for Member States.

Accordingly, the paper addresses the following research questions: (i) to what extent does the PNRF model comply with Artt.icles 38–44 TFEU and with the CAP’s long-standing “speciality” and earmarking principles?; (ii) what safeguards and design features are legally necessary to prevent budgetary dilution and ensure accountability under a unified governance framework;? (iii) which trade-offs emerge for Member States when programming through PPNR compared with current CAP Strategic Plans?

The contribution of the article is twofold: first, it offers a doctrinal legal analysis anchored in primary and secondary EU law; second, it translates legal requirements into operational implications for programming, control and enforcement, thus informing both scholarship and policy practice.

2. Methodology and Materials

With the publication of the Commission proposals of 16 July 2025— – in particular Regulation COM(2025) 565 establishing the Single Fund, read in conjunction with the proposed CAP Regulation COM(2025) 560 and the MFF⁵ proposal COM(2025) 550 (European Commission, 2025b)— – the European Commission formally initiated the reform process of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for the period 2028–2034, introducing the PNRF structure as the cornerstone of the new financial governance. This represents a significant normative shift, moving beyond the traditional dual structure of the CAP, while maintaining— – according to the explicit provisions of the proposal— – a distinct agricultural financial section, characterised by earmarked spending channels and specific obligations of traceability and allocation of resources. The aim of this article is to assess whether the proposed Single Fund architecture is consistent with EU primary law (Artt.s 38–44 TFEU) and to identify its operational implications for governance, accountability and beneficiaries.

Methodologically, the analysis follows a doctrinal legal approach combined with an institutional policy assessment, drawing on the full 2028–2034 legislative package (COM([2025)] 565, COM([2025)] 560, COM([2025)] 550, COM([2025)] 545), the current CAP regulations (EU, 2021a–c) 2021/2115–2117, parliamentary and Council materials⁶, and peer-reviewed scholarship, all cited in footnotes, all cited in footnotes. As regards the state of the literature, it must be underlined that strictly scientific publications on the post-2027 CAP reform are still embryonic, given that the legislative package was only unveiled in July 2025. Accordingly, the analysis relies on two complementary sources: on the one hand, the most recent academic debate (2023–2024) anticipating the reform and addressing issues of renationalisation, budgetary dilution and the CAP’s declining share in the EU budget; on the other hand, early institutional and stakeholder contributions (CREA, CEJA, Copa-Cogeca, national parliaments) that provide initial analytical frameworks and negotiating positionsThe analysis has also been updated to take account of subsequent institutional developments, including Regulation (EU) 2025/2649 on CAP simplification, the European Court of Auditors’ Opinions 05/2026 and 09/2026, the European Parliament’s legislative updates on the 2028–2034 CAP package, and the Commission’s strategy on generational renewal in agriculture. As regards the state of the literature, it must be underlined that strictly scientific publications on the post-2027 CAP reform are still embryonic, given that the legislative package was only unveiled in July 2025. Accordingly, the analysis relies on two complementary sources: on the one hand, the most recent academic debate anticipating the reform and addressing issues of renationalisation, budgetary dilution and the CAP’s declining share in the EU budget; on the other hand, early institutional and stakeholder contributions, including CREA, CEJA, Copa-Cogeca and national parliamentary materials, which provide initial analytical frameworks and negotiating positions⁷.

This new architecture raises questions not only regarding the future configuration of agricultural and cohesion policies, but above all with respect to its consistency and compatibility with EU law. In particular, it challenges the balance between the CAP’s “common” character and the need for integration with cohesion and other policies. The analysis clarifies that the principles of earmarking and transparency are here understood as sectoral guarantees specific to the CAP, distinct from the general constitutional principles of conferral and good administration.

Accordingly, the article examines the legal design of the PNRF, the safeguards on earmarking and accountability, and the room for national discretion under the PPNR, and it discusses policy-relevant scenarios and risks of litigation, while acknowledging that ongoing negotiations may lead to further adjustments of the proposal.

3. The Current Legal Framework of the CAP and the Role of the European Funds (EAGF, EAFRD)

From a financial perspective, the CAP has historically been structured around two major lines of intervention, each endowed with its own legal and accounting instrument: the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF) (EU, 2013b)⁸ and the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) (EU, 2013a)⁹. The legal framework of both funds was substantially updated with the CAP reform for the period 2023–2027, implemented through a package of regulations that profoundly reshaped the programming and management system. In particular:

Regulation (EU) 2021/2115¹⁰ introduced the CAP Strategic Plans to be drawn up by the Member States, integrating interventions financed by both pillars into a single national programming framework while explicitly maintaining the distinction in the origin and earmarking of resources.;
Regulation (EU) 2021/2116 governed the financing, management, and monitoring of the CAP, confirming the obligation of separate accounting and reporting for EAGF and EAFRD.;
Regulation (EU) 2021/2117 amended the rules concerning common market organisations and other sectoral measures, without altering the two-pillar financial architecture.

This dual system embodies what the literature refers to as a principle of functional specialisation and earmarking, rather than a general constitutional principle, ensuring that direct payments, market measures, and rural development measures are financed and accounted for separately, with distinct procedures of control and audit at both national and Union levels. This system was designed to safeguard transparency, managerial accountability, and the effectiveness of interventions, as well as to guarantee compliance with the budgetary balances established by the Multiannual Financial Framework of the European Union¹¹ (EU, 2020).

The two-pillar architecture of the CAP— – market measures and income support on the one hand, rural development on the other— – has therefore functioned as the structural guarantee of the CAP’s sectoral identity and of the legal protection of agricultural interests within the EU order.¹². Until the Commission’s 2025 proposal, this separation had remained a constant in every reform since the 1999 Agenda 2000 reform, politically endorsed by the Berlin European Council and legally implemented, inter alia, through Regulation (EC) No 1257/1999 on rural development support (European Council, 1999; European Union, 1999).¹³. The move towards the new National and Regional Partnership Fund (PNRF), officially introduced in COM(2025) 565, represents the most significant departure from this tradition and the focal point of the current legal debate.

4. Results

4.1 The Single Fund Proposal – legal contours and institutional rationale

The Commission’s proposal for the National and Regional Partnership Fund (PNRF), set out in Regulation COM(2025) 565, represents the cornerstone of the financial reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for 2028–2034. It merges resources historically assigned to the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF) and the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (Artt. 1, 3, 6 EAFRD)¹⁴ into a single management framework, while also incorporating cohesion, fisheries and social policy funds. Unlike earlier ideas of a fully undifferentiated merger, the proposal establishes a ring-fenced agricultural section to safeguard the identity and autonomy of CAP resources¹⁵.

The institutional rationale, as outlined in the recitals, pursues a dual objective: first, to rationalise management and strengthen synergies across funds; second, to preserve farmers’ income support as a distinct core component of the CAP. The minimum ring-fenced allocation amounts to EUR 295.7 billion (Art. 10 COM([2025)] 565, read together with Art. 35([3])) for income support instruments, complemented by crisis management measures and rural development interventions. This guaranteed minimum, however, does not preclude additional allocations: Member States retain discretion to devote further resources to CAP priorities, a flexibility that could substantially affect the real agricultural budget under the new governance framework¹⁶.

To ensure accountability, the proposal incorporates binding safeguards: respect for earmarking¹⁷, ex ante evaluation and Commission recommendations on Partnership Plans (Art. 23 COM(2025) 565), and performance monitoring¹⁸ under the proposed Performance Regulation COM(2025) 545. The CAP component will take the form of a distinct chapter of each national Partnership Plan, prepared and monitored through a dedicated partnership process¹⁹.

The European Court of Auditors’ Opinion 05/2026 confirms the structural nature of the reform: for the first time since the establishment of the CAP in 1962, agricultural expenditure would no longer be channelled through a specific agricultural fund, but through a broader European Fund implemented by National and Regional Partnership Plans. This reinforces the need for legally robust safeguards on traceability, beneficiary-level accounting and audit trails, since the Court expressly stresses that payments to beneficiaries must remain traceable in the paying agencies’ accounting systems (European Court of Auditors, 2026a).

From a legal standpoint, the shift to a Single Fund raises structural and constitutional questions regarding the dilution of the CAP’s functional specialisation²⁰, the risk of blurring sectoral priorities, and the balance between EU-level oversight and Member State autonomy. The real challenge lies in reconciling simplification and integration with the preservation of CAP’s legal identity and its budgetary guarantees, avoiding what one author defines as a “silent dismantling” of the two-pillar model in favour of a hybridised structure²¹8 (Frascarelli, 2025a).

Operationally, the reform entails greater complexity, as programming, control and reporting must integrate heterogeneous legal sources across agriculture, cohesion, fisheries and social policies. This multi-level governance, while promising in terms of efficiency, also increases the risk of overlap, interpretative divergence and litigation, amounting to a form of ‘institutional hybridisation’ of CAP governance (Palazzoni, 2025)²².

4.2 Legal Issues: compatibility with EU primary law and potential litigation

The proposal to establish the National and Regional Partnership Fund (PNRF) for the 2028–2034 CAP, while providing for a distinct agricultural section and earmarked financial channels, raises questions as to its full compatibility with EU primary law. At the institutional level, the Commission’s presentation of the proposal—— – contained in COM(2025) 565, read together with the sectoral CAP Regulation COM(2025) 560— – without prior alignment with the contrary orientation expressed by the European Parliament in plenary, has been perceived in political circles as a choice that diminishes the Assembly’s weight at the stage of legislative initiative. This is a perception which, although it does not affect the formal prerogatives of Parliament and Council— – both of which retain full authority to approve or reject the proposal— – has fuelled debate on compliance with the spirit of the Lisbon Treaty, aimed at strengthening Parliament’s centrality as co-legislator in the definition of common policies. These procedural sensitivities intersect with substantive ones, since Artt.icles 38–44 TFEU confer on the CAP the nature of a “common” policy, with its own objectives, instruments and resources, while Art.icle 40(3) TFEU permits the setting-up of agricultural guidance and guarantee funds, rather than mandating them. Read together with six decades of consistent secondary legislation— – from the establishment of the EAGGF (Council Regulation No 25/1962), through the split into EAGF/EAFRD (Council Regulation (EC) No 1290/2005), to the current financing framework (Regulation (EU) 2021/2116EU, 2021b)— – this permissive clause has crystallised a sector-specific financing architecture for the CAP, with separate accounting and clearance-of-accounts mechanisms.

The central legal-constitutional questions raised by the Single Fund therefore concern compliance with Articles 38–44 TFEU, the preservation of the principle of speciality through ring-fencing and separate accounting, the balance between subsidiarity and uniformity of EU action, and the risk of a progressive renationalisation of the CAP with potential litigation before the Court of Justice. These issues must be assessed in light of the Court of Justice’s case-law on CAP financial discipline, clearance of accounts and shared-management safeguards, as well as legal certainty and sectoral accounting in EU agricultural expenditure (Court of Justice of the European Union, 2000, 2020, 2022; General Court of the European Union, 2015).

While the proposal formally maintains the earmarking of agricultural resources, it nonetheless moves beyond the structural dualism between EAGF and EAFRD by introducing a more transversal and flexible management model. The Commission has clarified that this is not an undifferentiated merger, but a separate “agricultural envelope” protecting direct payments and the CAP’s traditional measures²³. Doubts remain in the literature and among practitioners about the long-term robustness of the speciality mechanisms and separate-accounting safeguards— – especially under budgetary stress or reorientation of Union priorities (e.g. shifts towards cohesion or social policies)— – with a consequent risk of diluting the agricultural orientation. . The risk is compounded by a process of “‘silent nationalisation’”²⁴ of the CAP: increasing flexibility at Member State level in allocating resources could fragment policy implementation, weaken common environmental and social commitments, and reduce the sense of CAP as a genuinely “common” policy.

The new discipline must therefore be assessed in light of the principles of coherence with common policies, legal certainty, administrative transparency and managerial accountability, as affirmed by the case-law of the Court of Justice of the EU and leading scholarship²⁵ (Henke, 2024). Clarification is also needed on the so-called “principle of speciality”: in this context, it does not correspond to the constitutional principle of conferral, but rather to the functional separation and earmarking that has historically characterised CAP financing. The debate no longer focuses on whether to merge the funds, but rather on the effective performance of the safeguards, earmarking constraints and reporting obligations provided for in the proposal.

From a litigation perspective, adoption of the new framework could be challenged by Member States or economic operators (Art. 263 TFEU). Disputes will likely centre on the capacity of the agricultural sections to remain impermeable vis-à-vis other Union policies and on compliance with Artt.icles 38–40 TFEU, as well as with the principles of the internal market²⁶4 (Masini, 2024). It must also be acknowledged that some instruments included in the reform (capping, degressivity, redistributive payments)²⁷ are politically presented as tools to rebalance support, but in practice their thresholds and loopholes risk limiting their effectiveness, raising additional questions of fairness and accountability.

It should nevertheless be noted that a strand of legal scholarship and agricultural economics²⁸6²⁹ (Sotte, 2023) views the CAP’s “separateness”³⁰— – particularly on the rural development side— – as a constraint on the coherence of territorial policies³¹ (Crescenzi & Giua, 2014). From this perspective, the Single Fund could offer an opportunity to overcome such compartmentalisation and promote an integrated, cross-sectoral approach more consistent with the sustainable development needs of rural areas³² (Rubino, 2024). From a different angle, the Single Fund and the PPNR can also be read as an application of the principle of subsidiarity (Art. 5 TFEU)³³³⁴ (Frascarelli, 2019), insofar as they grant Member States a broader margin to tailor interventions to national and regional specificities, while respecting common objectives set at EU level. This approach— – endorsed by parts of civil society and by sectors not strictly agricultural— – seeks to embed the CAP within a broader vision of territorial, environmental and food policies, countering the perception of a policy reserved exclusively to farmers. However, the balance between subsidiarity and uniformity is delicate: excessive decentralisation could generate legal uncertainty, inequalities between Member States, and litigation concerning the violation of beneficiaries’ legitimate expectations.

It is also important to specify that certain CAP interventions listed in Art.icle 35 COM(2025) 565 (e.g. LEADER, cooperation measures) remain mandatory for Member States but are financed outside the minimum ring-fenced allocation, from non-earmarked resources. This nuance has significant implications for the effective level of agricultural funding. The issue of the Union’s financial liability also remains open where retroactive effects or changes to beneficiaries’ legitimate expectations are at stake, with possible compensatory consequences.

Finally, the reform may affect institutional balances among the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission: revising the CAP’s financial set-up will require adjustments to the Multiannual Financial Framework and to sectoral regulations— – processes that will need broad political agreement and could heighten tensions among institutions and Member States in a context already marked by farmers’ mobilisations and uncertainty about the future direction of EU agricultural policy.

4.3 Simplification and “Omnibus III”: regulatory developments and legal impact

By the expression “Omnibus III”³⁵ this article refers not merely to the Commission’s proposal for Regulation COM(2025) 236 of 14 May 2025(European Commission, 2025a), but to the final simplification package adopted as Regulation (EU) 2025/2649 (European Union, 2025). The file was politically agreed on 10 November 2025, adopted by Parliament on 16 December 2025 and by the Council on 18 December 2025, signed on 19 December 2025, published in the Official Journal on 31 December 2025 and entered into force on 1 January 2026 (European Parliament, 2026).

The package functions as a transitional phase between the current 2023–2027 CAP and the model sketched in proposal COM(2025) 560 (read together with COM([2025]) 560) for 2028–2034. Its stated aims are to lighten administrative burdens, broaden Member States’ operational flexibility, and speed up disbursement, while anticipating certain features of the future governance framework.

In substantive terms, Omnibus III has raised the threshold for lump-sum payments to small farmers, expanded the scope for reallocating budgetary resources to crisis-management instruments, and promoted the digitalisation of controls (satellite monitoring and e-administration). t also adjusts the conditionality framework by relaxing certain GAEC standards for eligibility to direct payments and by streamlining controls, performance reporting and payment procedures (European Parliament, 2025)³⁶ . At the same time, the Omnibus III package focuses on procedural simplification (conditionality/GAEC fine-tuning, controls, reporting and payment procedures) rather than budgetary modulation or generational-renewal instruments, which are addressed in the sectoral CAP proposal ((COM(2025) 560)).

From a legal standpoint, Omnibus III, as finally adopted in Regulation (EU) 2025/2649, operates as enacted transitional legislation intended to simplify the implementation of the 2023–2027 CAP and to test procedural adjustments that may inform the post-2027 framework. It focuses on simplification and digitalisation, notably satellite monitoring, e-administration and streamlined performance reporting, without altering the dual-fund architecture of the current CAP.

The proposal does not modify the allocation rules between the EAGF and EAFRD, nor does it expand national discretion in resource management. Its main legal relevance lies in reducing administrative burden and improving the proportionality, transparency and efficiency of controls, in line with the broader requirements of good administration reflected in Article 41 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (European Union, 2012).

As underlined in recent scholarship³⁷ (Franscarelli, 2025; Palazzoni, 2025), the forthcoming Single Fund (COM ([2025)] 560)— – not the Omnibus III— – will introduce substantive innovations in income-support architecture, generational-renewal instruments and crisis-management tools through the National and Regional Partnership Plans (PPNR). Omnibus III therefore acts merely as a technical pre-adjustment, paving the way for— – but not itself establishing— – the unified management model proposed for 2028–2034.

5. Discussion

5.1 Objections and legal critiques from farmers’ organisations and Member States

The proposal to establish a National and Regional Partnership Fund (PNRF) for the 2028–2034 CAP has elicited broad and cohesive opposition from institutional actors, leading farmers’ organisations and trade-union representatives, both nationally and at EU level. This dissent— – going beyond mere corporatist resistance— – rests on legal, political and social arguments, with references to the Treaties, EU case-law and the foundational principles of Union law.

The most representative European farmers’ organisations³⁸ (Copa-Cogeca et al., 2025) launched the joint campaign “No Security Without CAP” in July 2025, arguing that the Single Fund risks undermining the nature and purposes of the CAP as set out in Art.icle 39 TFEU— – namely market stability, security of supply, fair farm income and the protection of rural areas. In particular, they fear a “dilution” of agricultural resources in favour of cohesion, innovation or digital-transition policies, which are not recognised among the CAP’s primary objectives.

Position papers and petitions also criticise the Single Fund as a dangerous “container” model: even if separate financial channels and safeguards are envisaged, the CAP could progressively lose its normative and social specificity. The opposition has widened to include France and Germany³⁹ (Frank & Schanz, 2025), traditionally inclined to compromise, which now fear excessive politicisation in the allocation of resources and the loss of predictability typical of the CAP⁴⁰ (Walsh, 2025).

Italian farmers’ organisations (Coldiretti, Confagricoltura, CIA) have deemed the proposal “unacceptable,,”, stressing the risk of a renationalisation of the CAP (the so-called “PAN”) with a consequent erosion of the legal basis of the single market and of the CAP’s status as a common policy. They argue that reallocating resources to other headings⁴¹, particularly to meet the Union’s growing defence needs, would negatively affect food security, sustainability and the sector’s environmental role. This concern is reinforced by the Commission’s Member States allocation factsheet, which shows the expected distribution of resources under the proposed 2028–2034 framework (European Commission, 2025e).

The trade-union front advances technical demands such as mandatory separate accounting for agricultural resources, dedicated multiannual programming, and anti-reallocation clauses, designed to prevent “market fragmentation,”, widening inequalities among Member States and the erosion of farm incomes.

From the standpoint of generational renewal, the European Council of Young Farmers (CEJA) argues that any unified framework must preserve hard earmarking for young farmers. CEJA calls for ring-fencing at least 10% of direct payments for generational renewal, approximately EUR 30 billion over 2028–2034, together with a “generational toolbox” including advisory services, succession and land-mobility instruments, risk management and access to finance (European Council of Young Farmers [CEJA], 2025).

CEJA’s demand for a 10% hard earmark should now be read alongside the Commission’s subsequent Strategy for generational renewal in agriculture, which recommends that Member States invest at least 6% of their ring-fenced agricultural expenditure in generational renewal. However, this recommendation does not appear as a binding ring-fencing obligation in the legislative proposal, which confirms the article’s broader concern that politically important agricultural priorities may depend on soft steering rather than enforceable financial guarantees (European Commission, 2025h; European Parliament, 2026). Absent binding earmarks, the Single Fund could exacerbate structural ageing and the exit of small and medium-sized farms in Mediterranean systems⁴².

In the public debate, fears have spread that the CAP could become residual, especially under pressure from the so-called “frugal” countries and new EU priorities (defence, green transition, cooperation), with disproportionately negative effects on small farmers and fragile rural areas. These concerns are reinforced by the Commission’s concept of a “light CAP,”, which would transfer unprecedented powers to Member States, progressively hollowing out the policy’s common and sectoral content.

The Italian Parliament has expressed strong reservations about both the dismantling of the two pillars and the increase in national managerial autonomy, which could generate fragmentation and inequities contrary to the principle of uniformity of EU action. In particular, the XIII Agriculture Committee of the Chamber of Deputies, at its sitting of 23 July 2025, adopted a final document on COM(2025) 560, while stressing the need to preserve separate accounting and the CAP’s common character, and to avoid excessive managerial flexibility that could distort its sectoral objectives (Italian Chamber of Deputies, XIII Agriculture Committee, 2025).

Legal scholarship has reiterated the risk of litigation before the Court of Justice in the absence of a revision of EU primary law⁴³⁴⁴ (Germanò, 2023; Carloni, 2024). National associations also underline that the loss of a dedicated fund could weaken Member States’ bargaining capacity and reduce planning certainty for farm businesses. Beyond legal aspects, the social and democratic dimension of contestation has intensified: farmers’ organisations denounce an “opaque and technocratic logic” in the reform process, widening the gap between EU governance and agricultural civil society. The new CAP risks not only marginalising agriculture within the EU budget, but also triggering a crisis of democratic legitimacy.

Ultimately, even in the presence of safeguards and formal constraints8,the reform raises deep legal-constitutional questions and leaves unresolved the tension between administrative efficiency and the substantive protection of agricultural interests. Even if technically “ring-fenced,,”, the Single Fund remains— – according to representative bodies and scholars— – a reform with a high risk of eroding the CAP’s legal subjectivity as an autonomous policy within the EU legal order⁴⁵ (Gavrilova Nikolaeva, 2025). In this context, the risk of a gradual renationalisation becomes more concrete, with increased centrality of Member States in designing and managing interventions—— – often through bilateral negotiations with the Commission. While compatible with a model of decentralised governance, this set-up reduces the role of the European Parliament and other supranational bodies in priority-setting and may affect the overall coherence of the common agricultural policy.

5.2. Prospects and possible regulatory scenarios

The debate on the National and Regional Partnership Fund (PNRF) for the 2028–2034 CAP unfolds at a time of major rethinking of the Union’s budgetary and cohesion policies, driven by exogenous factors such as the climate crisis, the digital transition, and geopolitical tensions affecting food security. In this context, the formation— – formalised in May 2025 (De Marinis, 2025)⁴⁶— – of a coalition of 16 Member States led by Italy has played a decisive role in resetting priorities and steering the institutional negotiation. While this coalition emerged in parallel with the Commission’s package, its influence has been to shift the centre of gravity of the debate from a full merger towards compromise solutions that preserve the CAP’s sectoral identity.

On the political-institutional plane, the Commission’s determination— – evidenced by President Ursula von der Leyen’s explicit support for the Single Fund project— – has met with an unprecedented crisis of consensus. Farmers’ mobilisations and the stance taken by the European Parliament, which has adopted in September 2025 a resolution calling for a stronger agricultural budget and rejecting the merger of CAP resources into a single super-fund, confirm both the depth of dissent and the need to preserve the CAP’s “common” dimension as enshrined in Artt.icles 38–44 TFEU. Against this backdrop, the Council has signalled openness to simplification coupled with robust safeguards for agricultural allocations, further consolidating a path towards calibrated integration rather than wholesale fusion.

Italy’s diplomatic action, backed by Spain, Greece and thirteen other countries, has consolidated the front of those insisting on maintaining the stability and ring-fencing of agricultural and rural development resources. As a result, the debate has gradually shifted away from the option of a full and undifferentiated merger— – now politically marginal— – towards compromise alternatives. In particular, three scenarios⁴⁷ (Council of the European Union, 2025; European Parliament, 2025) frame the current negotiation space: (i) a full Single Fund with limited safeguards (politically weakened); (ii) a “hybrid/virtual” Single Fund combining centralised governance with protected channels and legal labelling for agricultural resources (currently the most plausible landing zone); and (iii) a reinforced status quo that preserves the two-pillar architecture within the MFF while strengthening coordination and performance tracking. Each scenario implies different trade-offs for subsidiarity, legal certainty and administrative burden.

Growing attention from Regions and local administrations has also brought into focus the issue of coordinating EU strategies with the actual needs of rural economies. While the “national and regional” set-up of the PPNR could, on the one hand, reinforce the territorial grounding of interventions, on the other hand the Fund’s unified governance could— – absent adequate participation mechanisms— – limit the capacity of agricultural policies to adapt to local specificities.

These concerns are not merely political but legal, since Art.icle 40(3) TFEU permits— – rather than mandates— – the setting-up of agricultural guidance and guarantee funds; read together with six decades of secondary legislation, this permissive clause has crystallised dedicated agricultural financing. Any blurring of ring-fencing therefore raises questions of legal certainty and enforceability for beneficiaries.

The creation of the new EUR 865 billion EU “super-fund”, which brings CAP, cohesion, health, bioeconomy and regional investment under a single framework, has heightened fears that agricultural resources may be progressively absorbed by other Union priorities, undermining the sustainability of structural investments, generational renewal and the resilience of fragile rural areas. These concerns are reinforced by the fact that, under the proposed NRP Fund architecture, only part of CAP-related expenditure would be ring-fenced, while other agricultural interventions would depend on allocations made within the broader national and regional partnership plans (European Parliamentary Research Service, 2025). Subsequent institutional developments show that the Commission has attempted to respond to this criticism by presenting the rural target and additional flexibility mechanisms as safeguards for rural areas. In particular, the Commission now refers to a rural target of at least 10% of each NRPP’s resources outside the ring-fenced amounts, corresponding to EUR 48.7 billion for rural areas, potentially increasing to EUR 63.7 billion through Catalyst Europe loans (European Commission, 2026). These developments do not remove the legal issue of the CAP’s loss of a dedicated fund, but they modify the political balance of the reform and should be considered in assessing the likelihood of a hybrid compromise.

Supporters of the reform respond that integration into a broader framework could enhance coordination between agricultural, environmental and social policies, thereby modernising the CAP and countering the perception of a policy reserved exclusively to farmers. Practically, the balance will depend on the strength of ex ante controls, performance tracking and anti-reallocation clauses embedded in the final text, as well as on certified separate accounting within the national Partnership Plans.

At the same time, the sectoral CAP proposal introduces a Degressive Area-Based Income Support scheme, replacing several current income-support mechanisms and making degressivity and capping mandatory elements of the new architecture. This confirms that the Commission is attempting to combine the Single Fund model with a more redistributive design of direct support. However, the practical redistributive effect of these provisions will depend on the final wording of the regulation, the anti-avoidance mechanisms adopted during the legislative process, and the way in which Member States implement the new support model within their National and Regional Partnership Plans (European Commission, 2025f, Art. 6).

From a regulatory-constitutional perspective, it is foreseeable that the European Parliament, Member States or agricultural operators could seek the Court of Justice’s guidance—— – through annulment actions (Art. 263 TFEU) or preliminary references (Art. 267 TFEU)—— – to verify the reform’s compliance with Artt.iclesicles 38–40 TFEU and with the principle of legal certainty. Judicial scrutiny would help define the scope and effectiveness of the safeguards in COM(2025) 565 (ring-fenced agricultural envelope⁴⁸; mandatory interventions under Art. 35), providing a baseline for implementation and review.

Finally, a strand of the debate warns that the reform could be remembered as a missed opportunity to relaunch the European farm sector if a logic of linear budgetary cuts and residualisation were to prevail over a genuine project of agro-ecological transition, support for young farmers and rural development.

The discussion on the CAP’s future governance cannot, in the end, overlook the need to balance environmental, economic and social sustainability. To safeguard the strategic role of Europe’s agricultural policy, it will be necessary, on the one hand, to preserve its financial stability and sectoral identity, and, on the other, to adapt its instruments to society’s evolving needs—— – avoiding the risk of immobility which could paradoxically accelerate the dismantling of the CAP itself⁴⁹ (Carloni, 2024).

6. Conclusions

The reform of the CAP cannot be assessed merely as a matter of “financial architecture.”. It must be understood as a critical juncture at the intersection of three broader dimensions: the geopolitics of food, economic redistribution, and the democratic legitimacy of the Union.

From a geopolitical perspective, integrating the CAP into a multi-policy super-fund risks undermining Europe’s strategic autonomy at a time when global food crises reveal the fragility of supply chains. A CAP without autonomous budgetary and legal standing would be ill-equipped to guarantee the priority of supporting European farmers in the face of external shocks or international pressure. In this sense, preserving an independent agricultural budget is not a corporatist privilege but a requirement of economic sovereignty and food security⁵⁰ (Bolognini, 2021).

From an economic and social perspective, the Commission’s proposal does not adequately address the structural problem of land concentration⁵¹ and the widening gap between large agribusinesses and small and medium-sized farms. The introduction of degressivity, capping and redistributive mechanisms signals an attempt to rebalance direct support, but their actual effectiveness will depend on the final wording of the regulation, the strength of anti-avoidance rules and the choices made by Member States within their National and Regional Partnership Plans. Similarly, the Commission’s subsequent emphasis on rural targets and generational renewal shows a political response to criticism, but not necessarily the creation of enforceable financial guarantees. The challenge is therefore not simply to preserve farm income, but to transform the European rural development model into one that is more sustainable, inclusive and legally accountable.

From an institutional perspective, the reform affects the credibility of EU decision-making itself. The transition from dedicated agricultural funds to a broader European Fund, as also highlighted by the European Court of Auditors, confirms the structural nature of the change and strengthens the need for traceability, beneficiary-level accounting, audit trails and effective performance monitoring. A common policy cannot rely solely on technical legitimacy or administrative simplification; it also requires social consensus, parliamentary scrutiny and a clear political vision. For this reason, the future of the CAP must be based on a transparent and participatory decision-making process that includes not only Member States and major interest groups, but also local communities, young farmers and new forms of agricultural representation.

The best path for European agriculture is therefore a CAP that does not relinquish its status as a common, autonomous and strategic policy, while using the reform as an opportunity to act as a driver of equity, sustainability and innovation. Safeguarding the agricultural envelope is necessary but not sufficient. The decisive question is whether that envelope will operate as a binding legal guarantee of speciality and earmarking, reinforced by certified separate accounting, enforceable performance milestones, beneficiary-level traceability and anti-reallocation clauses capable of ensuring continuity of mandatory agricultural interventions. Without such safeguards, the Single Fund would risk producing a progressive dilution of the CAP’s legal identity; with them, it could become a more integrated but still recognisably common agricultural policy.

The analysis carried out has therefore shown that the proposed PNRF model can be considered compatible with Articles 38–44 TFEU only if the formal ring-fencing of agricultural expenditure is translated into effective and enforceable legal mechanisms. Equally, the comparison between the new National and Regional Partnership Plans and the current CAP Strategic Plans confirms that the apparent gains in flexibility and cross-policy synergies are counterbalanced by a greater risk of fragmentation, unequal treatment and dilution of common standards. The subsequent institutional developments do not remove these concerns; rather, they confirm that the likely landing zone of the reform is a hybrid compromise, in which the preservation of the CAP’s common character will depend less on institutional labels than on the concrete strength of accounting, monitoring and enforcement safeguards.

The contribution of this paper has therefore been to clarify, through a doctrinal legal and institutional assessment, the extent to which the reform can preserve the CAP’s legal identity and financial guarantees while adapting agricultural governance to broader Union objectives. The ultimate test of the reform will lie in its capacity to reconcile income protection, food security, generational renewal, climate transition and territorial cohesion, transforming the CAP from a compensatory mechanism into the cornerstone of a renewed pact between agriculture and European society.

The full text of the article is published in Problems of Agricultural Economics, 387(2):1-26
DOI: https://doi.org/10.30858/zer/216953

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