Project

Designing Moldova’s EU-aligned agricultural conditionality system

Active project

2026–2027

Project contact

Moldova is taking an important step in aligning its agricultural policy with the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). As part of its EU accession process the country has adopted Law 126/2025, which requires the introduction of a full conditionality system under Moldova’s Strategic Programme for Agricultural Policy (PSPA).

Conditionality is a core part of the CAP. It means that farmers receiving public support must follow a set of basic rules that protect the environment, support climate action, safeguard public, animal and plant health, improve land management and promote animal welfare. These rules fall into two categories:

Statutory Management Requirements (SMRs) – legal standards related to areas such as the environment, food safety, animal and plant health, and animal welfare.
Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions (GAECs) – standards for maintaining land in good environmental condition, including soil protection, water management, biodiversity and climate-related practices.

Together, SMRs and GAECs will form the foundation of Moldova’s future CAP green architecture. This foundation will also support future environmental and climate measures, such as eco-schemes, agri-environment-climate measures, organic farming support and new instruments expected under the post-2027 CAP.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry of Moldova requested SEI’s support to guide the strategic design and phased implementation of this system. The work will involve close cooperation with the Ministry of Environment and other national institutions and stakeholders to ensure that the system is needs-based, realistic and suited to Moldova’s agricultural context. It will also facilitate knowledge exchange with Swedish stakeholders.

Funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), this project aims to design a practical, EU CAP-aligned conditionality system for Moldova that forms the basis of the country’s future CAP green architecture and builds the institutional and operational capacity needed for gradual implementation.
The project will help identify what is needed to make the system work in practice, including:

institutional roles and responsibilities
monitoring systems and compliance procedures
links with wider agricultural, environmental and climate objectives.

In doing so, the project directly supports Moldova’s progress under key areas of the EU accession process, including Chapter 11 on agriculture and rural development and Chapter 27 on environment and climate change. Through improved environmental monitoring and compliance systems, it also contributes to Chapter 12 on food safety, veterinary and phytosanitary policy and Chapter 13 on fisheries.