The Evolution Of The Cap Reform Negotiations And The State Of Play At The End Of 2020 – Possible Political Implications For Romania

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) modernization, simplification and reforming is a dynamic and indispensable process for the future of agriculture and rural development in Europe. Climate change challenges need to be addressed in a mostly concrete and coherent way, to better protect the environment as well as to provide quality food, sufficient and accessible to European consumers. The development gaps between the EU member states and between the urban and rural areas, as well as the economic and social challenges, exacerbated by the 2020 pandemic crisis and BREXIT, have given a strong signal that a deep CAP reform and a simplification of its implementation are needed. The change initiated in 2014, followed by a mid-term evaluation of its implementation and adjusted starting with 2018, has continued, so that, after a wide public consultation, in late 2017, the European Commission launched the communication "The Future of Food and Farming" outlining the directions and orientations for the post-2020 CAP, as it resulted from the consultations. This was practically the moment of opening the debates on the new reform. CAP reforming follows the rigours of the European legislative process, which has not been completed yet, being currently in the stage of trilogue negotiations, the ambition of the Portuguese Presidency being to be completed in May 2021. The European elections of 2019 led to a new European political context, by which new alliances and political majorities were created, with their own agenda in the European Parliament, and the new European Commission presented the European Green Deal, the program for the current term. As a result, the future CAP will include additional measures, around a new and more ambitious green architecture, which will combine social, economic and environmental approaches towards a sustainable agricultural system in the EU. The paper aims to present this reform path by the end of 2020 and to identify its implications for Romania.