• The Evaluation Plan for Spain's CAP Strategic Plan (PEPAC) has already been approved by the Monitoring Committee and sent to the European Commission.
• Following its completion, the CAP Network organised a conference to present the Evaluation Plan. The European Commission, some autonomous communities, the European CAP Evaluation Help Service and the evaluation team of the CAP Managing Authority participated in the conference.

The newCommon Agricultural Policy (CAP) 2023-2027 is designed so that the Member States of the European Union (EU)—through their CAP Strategic Plans—guide agricultural policy based on results and not just on compliance with requirements. Thus, the evaluation The implementation of the new CAP, through the role of Member States, is essential to verify its impact. To this end, the " Performance Monitoring and Assessment Framework (PMEF)" was created , which will allow reporting, monitoring, and evaluating the implementation of the CAP strategic plans of each EU Member State from 2023 to 2027.

In the case of Spain, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, in collaboration with the autonomous communities, has already completed the Evaluation Plan of the CAP Strategic Plan (PEPAC) and has obtained the opinion of the Monitoring Committee. Therefore, it has been sent to the European Commission. The implementation of the Evaluation Plan will make the results of the PEPAC visible to both the agricultural sector and society in general.

For this reason, the CAP Network has organized the Conference to present the Evaluation Plan of the CAP Strategic Plan. with a dual objective: to inform and involve interested entities and associations in the planned evaluation activities, as well as to identify contributions from participants in relation to the PEPAC evaluation.

More than 200 representatives from the CAP Managing Authority, regional management authorities, professional agricultural organizations, agri-food cooperatives, non-governmental organizations, and scientists from the Spanish National Research Council (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas), as well as representatives from the European Commission and the European CAP Evaluation Support Service, among others, participated in the sessions.

Conferences

The conference took place on October 24 and 25, with a program that ranged from the most macro level (European Union) to the study of specific success stories (Basque Country, La Rioja and Andalusia), including the PEPAC evaluation plan developed by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. and the role of the PAC Network in the evaluation plan. Applicants were also able to participate in a series of activities organized to review the initial evaluation documents for the PEPAC's specific objectives.

From the European Commission, Eduardo Serrano Padiel, evaluator at the European Commission's Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development, clarified that an evaluation is not an audit: its objective is not to verify compliance with regulations, but rather to identify deviations from the objectives and achievements of the Strategic Plans and, where appropriate, to propose modifications.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food has indicated that the PEPAC Evaluation Plan is strategic in nature and will subsequently be specified in a multi-year work program and, ultimately, in the respective annual action programs.

Evaluation Plan

Each EU Member State must design an Evaluation Plan , tailored to its own objectives and the country's evaluation needs. It must describe how these objectives will be achieved, along with a timeline covering:

• The evaluations .
• Furthermore, the document emphasizes the information to be used, the capacity building of the key stakeholders involved in the evaluation, and the communication of evaluation results.

Very important: EU Member States are requested to consult and involve all stakeholders in the Evaluation Plan. The Evaluation Plan must also be presented and discussed with the members of the Monitoring Committee. of each CAP Strategic Plan.

For up-to-date news on CAP evaluation, please visit the European CAP Network's "CAP Evaluation" newsletter .