Brussels, 8 October 2025 – In a vote today the European Parliament pushed ahead with a dangerous drive to “simplify” the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) by gutting its few remaining environmental protections, a move that will result in serious environmental damage, erode trust in democratic decision-making, and ultimately not improve the lives of the farmers it is meant to support, warns the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) – the largest network of environmental NGOs in Europe. 

Théo Paquet, Senior Policy Officer for Agriculture at the EEB, said:  

“The EU Parliament today failed to defend public interest and threatened the future resilience of EU farms by removing the few remaining environmental safeguards in the CAP.  

Stripping away protections against soil erosion and for vulnerable grasslands will not “simplify” farmers lives but expose them further to the escalating climate, nature, and pollution crisis.  

Most alarming is the decision to allow public funds to subsidise polluting and destructive farming practices in Natura 2000 areas, which exist to protect Europe’s most threatened species and their habitats.” 

This vote endorses all the harmful amendments adopted by the AGRI Committee – a group of 49 MEPs, 10 of whom are farmers, while others have side jobs with Big Agri businesses, including Arla Foods, and links with powerful national farmers’ unions [1]. This raises multiple concerns around conflicts of interest, as many of the businesses the MEPs are linked to would benefit financially from the proposed changes.  

Out of all the proposed amendments, the EEB is most concerned about:  

• Automatically marking farms in protected Natura 2000 sites as compliant with most of the CAP’s basic environmental standards (Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions, or GAECs 1, 3-7), thereby allowing public funds to be used to degrade precious ecosystems; 

• The removal of GAEC 5, which obliges farmers to take measures against soil erosion – with 60-70% of EU soils already in a poor state, this is reckless; 

• The deletion of GAEC 9 that ensures protection of the most valuable grasslands in Natura 2000. 

This is the second reform of the CAP [2] (without public debate or proper impact assessment) in less than two years. Upcoming trilogues will present an opportunity for Member States to refrain from adopting such unacceptable and obvious attempts to deregulate by removing environmental safeguards.  

Citizens across the EU have called on policymakers to create more, not fewer, protections for Europe’s collapsing ecosystems. Which is why the EEB calls on elected officials to listen to citizen voices and not bow to the pressure of Big Agri interests, at the expense of farmers livelihoods and the health of people and nature. 

ENDS 

Notes to editors 

[1] DeSmog investigation into the EU’s AGRI Committee’s links with Big Agri and farm lobbies across Europe.  

[2] EEB’s reaction to the last reform of the CAP in April 2024: “Fast-and-loose: Historic move as EU rushes to remove environmental safeguards in the CAP despite renewed calls from scientists to accelerate climate action”.  

Photo by Kenji Elzerman on Unsplash