ICMSA’s Denis Drennan: “If CAP is to have any future it must have an adequate budget”

Speaking following a meeting with Piotr Serafin, European Commissioner for Budget and Christophe Hansen, European Commissioner for Agriculture and Food, ICMSA President, Denis Drennan said that the first priority for the Irish Government must be to secure an adequate CAP budget under the MFF negotiations during 2026  – and that must be at least the index linked relative to the current budget to reflect the true cost of farming and primary food production in the EU today.  

Mr. Drennan said it had been made abundantly clear to the Commissioners and, specifically the Commissioner responsible for the Budget, that the current proposed budget is completely inadequate to achieve the stated objectives of CAP and, critically, that CAP cannot be used to solve all environment issues relating to farming.

“We firmly believe that the current CAP is already expected to do too much from a policy perspective and as a result is failing in its primary function of delivering a sustainable income to the farmers producing high quality food daily.  It is ICMSA’s firm view that the CAP must refocus on the issue of sustainable farm incomes and the destructive volatility and extreme swings in farm income. That has to be the focus of the next CAP and the aim must be moving farmers to a position where they can earn incomes in line with other sectors of the economy.  These are realisable aims that can be achieved through a strong index linked budget with policies focussed on those producing high quality food. The current budget proposal from the EU Commission is hopelessly inadequate and will have to be revised substantially upwards”, said Mr Drennan.

On the issue of the EU’s ‘Simplification’ agenda, Mr. Drennan said that the issue had long since become what he called ‘a laugh’ and that – so far from becoming more simple – that regulatory requirement and the administrative burden was becoming ever more complex and onerous.

“There isn’t a single farmer who will tell you that the process has become more simple and easy-to-understand and there’s no point in the EU saying that from their administrative point-of-view that it’s working; it has to work on the farm level and that exactly where it’s failing”, he said.

Concluding, Mr. Drennan said that size of the budget is critical and without an allocation proportionate to demands and an index-linked feature to deal with inflation and retain real spending power, CAP’s long and unfortunate slide into irrelevance would continue.

Ends      3 February 2026

Denis Drennan, 086-8389401

President, ICMSA

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Cathal MacCarthy, 087-6168758

ICMSA Press Office