The climate transition of the food system in France and the role of EU funding
The European Commission is due to deliver a Vision for Agriculture and Food, within the first 100 days of its new mandate. Feeding into this work, the Strategic Dialogue on the Future of Agriculture (SDFA) published its report “A shared prospect for farming and food in Europe” in September. The spending under the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) and its alignment with the climate goals agreed at the EU level will be central to the next steps.
I4CE‘s latest study on the public financing of the French food system analyses the contribution of both national and EU funding to the ecological transition. Green spending is estimated to be between 3.2 billion and €5 billion while brown spending is estimated at €3.8 billion. However, about €37 billion of public spending – mainly from national taxes and social exemptions – has an uncertain effect on ecological transition, as they cannot be considered favourable, unfavourable nor neutral.
The lion’s share of the CAP expenditures fall in this latter category, with approximately €9 billion in France. Despite a sensitive greening of its interventions and a new delivery model based on environmental and climate results among others, the 27 national CAP strategic plans commit €378 billion euros towards 2027 without clarifying how to deliver on the EU climate targets as also pointed out by the European Court of Auditors recently. So, how can the new EU executive ensure real progress on green spending and regulations in the new mandate, moving forward from the green backlash in the spring and with the recommendations of the SDFA ready to hand?
Prior to upcoming talks on the next multiannual financial framework (2028 – 2035), in which the CAP is a key component, budgetary constraints will likely guide discussions on spending. To reinforce the contribution of the CAP to the ecological transition it is important to focus on the levers for change. As suggested in the SDFA report, EU funding dedicated to the ecological transition in the agri-food sector as well as rewarding mechanisms and public-private cooperation are needed as enabling factors going forward. However, as we suggest in our report, it will also be necessary to focus on redirecting current expenditures which are not aligned with EU climate objectives and study how they can better contribute to the ecological transition.