The Agenda 2000 (CEC, 1998), adopted during the Berlin EU Council in spring 1999, sets out a framework for the CAP till 2006. It includes a ceiling on the agricultural budget, a further shift to direct payments, revisions to several important commodity regimes, a comprehensive rural development legislation and a new 'Common Rules' Regulation, introducing cross-compliance and modulation. Scarcely any growth in spending on measures under the Rural Development Regulation is allowed for. However, there still are opportunities for Member States to implement the package in ways that promote biodiversity objectives. The individual measures within the Agenda 2000 package need to be considered separately.

Agenda 2000 provides a relevant policy framework to integrate environmental considerations into agriculture, particularly via the EC-Regulation on Integrated Rural Development. However, while rural development measures are now widely regarded as an important part of a forward looking conservation policy, they will not suffice for halting the decline in wildlife value on most farmland. Biodiversity conservation targets are not mentioned in any of the Rural Development Regulations. The budgetary resources for different rural development and agri-environment measures have hardly increased for the 2000 - 2006 period.

During a recent inter-institutional meeting a representative of the European Commission's DG Agriculture specified the interest of the Commission in landscape issues in the following way: 'the agricultural sector, affect landscapes and it is likely that the new Agenda 2000 will launch new rural environment initiatives which require better knowledge on the character, value and geographic distribution of European landscapes' (Council of Europe, 1998c).