• The monitoring committee is the body responsible for ensuring the execution of the Plan, for which it will meet at least once a year.
• During the period 2023-2027, the committee will analyze both the execution of the Plan's measures (monitoring system) and their impact (evaluation).
• Member States may request amendments to the Strategic Plan, which must be approved by the Commission, to ensure that the interventions deliver the expected results.

The new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) Strategic Plan 2023-2027 entered into force on 1 January 2023. For the first time, a single plan (the CAP Strategic Plan) integrates the rural development initiatives of the seventeen autonomous communities, as well as the supra-regional measures that in previous periods were included in the 18 Rural Development Programmes. At the same time, it brings together agricultural development measures and rural development measures.

Overall, the new CAP is characterized by being more sustainable and more social, focused on more innovative and digital agriculture, and with an emphasis on generational renewal, women, and the environment.

To ensure compliance with this, the CAP Strategic Plan will be monitored annually and in a participatory manner through the monitoring committee ( article 124 of the Regulation , page 100 ) and the National CAP Network ( article 126 of the Regulation, page 101 ) .

To this end, the Strategic Plan Monitoring Committee was inaugurated today, February 15th, with its constitutive session. This first meeting served to adopt the internal regulations and the list of members . The selection criteria for one of the supra-regional interventions , the cooperation of the Operational Groups of the "European Innovation Partnership for Agricultural Productivity and Sustainability (AEI-AGRI)," were also discussed. Furthermore, the work schedule for this first year's activities was presented.

Plan Monitoring

During the period 2023-2027, both the implementation of the measures (monitoring system) and their impact (evaluation) will be analyzed, using a dual system:

1. Annual performance reports and biennial performance reviews (Articles 134 and 135 of the Regulation, page 105 ), based on outcome indicators that will provide information on the extent to which interventions are achieving the intended result.
2. Plan evaluation plan ( article 140 of the Regulation, page 108 ) , which will use, among others, the impact indicators (II; Annex I of the Regulation).

Based on these reports, both Spain and the European Commission may propose or request modifications to the Strategic Plan to ensure that the interventions deliver the expected results and impacts. The Plan may be modified once a year and up to three additional times during the 2023-2027 period.

The opinions issued by the monitoring committee will be made public.

Nature of the monitoring committee

The CAP, through the Strategic Plan, aims to further improve the sustainable development of agriculture, livestock farming, and rural areas, both economically, environmentally, and socially. The committee members reflect this diversity of areas, paying particular attention to regional authorities and those responsible for environmental and climate matters.

Representatives of rural women 's organizations, the agri-food industry , consumers , central and regional administrations , producer organizations, the organic farming sector, rural networks , and environmental organizations , among others, participated in the constitutive session.

From this point forward, the committee will continue to meet regularly to ensure proper monitoring of the Strategic Plan's implementation.