Approving member states’ National Strategic (agricultural) Plans: A structured dialogue, debate or discussion?

The development of so-called national strategic plans in the context of the EU agricultural policy is accompanied by considerable coordination between the member states and European Commission. An important first step in what is called a structured dialogue is the Commission’s approval of the plans. In assessing these the Commission should focus in particular on “the adequacy of the strategy” of the plans, according to Regulation (EU) 2021/2115 (article 118(2)); the specific objectives, interventions and financial allocation in the national plans should be based on a SWOT and ex-ante analysis. In reality, the Commission goes beyond assessing member states’ strategic approach. Even before member states started drawing up their plans, it gave specific recommendations to the member states, taking into account the objectives of the CAP, but also the ambitions of its Farm to Fork and Biodiversity Strategy. Based on a comparison of member states’ initial plans, the Commission, moreover, published its overall observation about member states ambitions, besides sending more tailor-made recommendations to the individual states. An interesting question is to what extent these recommendations will be followed and why. Based on existing literature on national policies that are coordinated at the EU level (in particular on the European Semester) two mechanisms can be distinguished that contribute to this. The first is a process of argumentative persuasion that causes national actors to internalize particular policy preferences and beliefs. Another mechanism is soft coercion. Within the context of the structured dialogue, naming and shaming, for example, may push actors to adopt certain recommendations. To assess to what extent these mechanism are operating in the context of the structured dialogue, we analyse the interaction between the Commission and member states around two strategic plans, that of the Netherlands and Flanders.