Common Agricultural Policy
Dail Éireann — 2026-07-09
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Martin Heydon (FG), Kildare South

I thank Deputy O'Hara for his question. Negotiations on the post-2027 Common Agricultural Policy have progressed since the European Commission published its proposals last year. As President of the Council of the European Union, Ireland is now building on the progress made under the Danish and Cypriot Presidencies. Our priority is to facilitate discussions on the remaining political and technical issues, on the CAP-specific provisions transferred into the CAP regulation from the national and regional partnership plan regulation, and on the appropriate balance that must be struck between maintaining the common nature of the Common Agricultural Policy and providing member states with sufficient flexibility to design and implement interventions that reflect their national farming systems and circumstances. That is a challenge we are going to have to try to navigate in these discussions.
It sounds nearly contradictory that on the one hand we want protect the commonality of the Common Agricultural Policy - our farmers have greatly benefited from being part of the Common Market of over 450 million people - but at the same time in designing a new scheme, if every measure is mandatory and if it is one-size-fits-all for every member state, it takes no account of the fact that we farm differently in Ireland than they do another member states, and we need that flexibility. I have been warned to be careful about how much flexibility I ask for because I might just get it and then have to own every decision. However, I would prefer that to having a system where every rule is the same for us as it is in Slovenia, France, Spain or Italy because we farm differently. We have to strike that balance.
To support this work, Ireland is engaging bilaterally with all member states to better understand their priorities, identify the issues that are of greatest concern to them and clarify areas of the legislative proposals where further work is required. We have also invited member states to submit written comments on the legislative proposals. This engagement will inform the preparation of Presidency compromise texts, with the aim of building consensus, resolving outstanding issues and advancing negotiations.
Our objective is to advance negotiations towards a partial general approach on the CAP regulation, which essentially means to agree all elements that do not have a financial or budgetary component that is still to be resolved by the negotiations on the post-2027 EU budget, which will be finalised at Head of State and Government level in the European Commission.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-07-09/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:07+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-09