Common agricultural policy (CAP) 2021–2027

2018/0218(COD)

OPINION No 7/2018 of the Court of Auditors concerning Commission's proposals for regulations relating to the common agricultural policy (CAP) for the post-2020 period.

The legislative proposal for the CAP after 2020 examined by the Court of Auditors includes three regulations accompanied by an impact assessment, as well as an explanatory memorandum on the three regulations.

- The ‘CAP strategic plan regulation’ covers the CAP objectives, types of interventions financed under the policy and general requirements for preparing CAP strategic plans.

- The ‘horizontal regulation’ includes financial rules and the monitoring and evaluation framework and the ‘amending regulation’ mainly transfers a large part of the rules from the ‘common market organisation regulation’ to the CAP strategic plan regulation.

The Court’s observations relate to the main proposed changes to the CAP for the post-2020 period which are as follows:

- one CAP strategic plan per Member State for all CAP expenditure (direct payments, rural development and market measures),

- an attempt to move towards a performance-based system,

- an attempt to redefine the eligibility of spending (reported outputs and a new concept of legality and regularity),

- changes in control systems (a changed role for the certification bodies).