EU officials involved in trilogue negotiations on the future of the Common Agricultural Policy announced on Wednesday that they had reached a deal on the broad terms of the new package.

The European Parliament Agriculture Committee will now vote on the new rules before the package is unveiled. Going into negotiations, Commission officials said the main aims of the reform were to make European farm policy fairer and more supportive of good environmental practice.

Negotiators from the UK announced the provisional agreement via Twitter late on Wednesday morning. Scottish Lib Dem MEP George Lyon said, "CAP agreement reached some parts good others not so good." However, he followed this up with, "No agreement on degressivity, capping, flexibility between pillars and crisis reserve. They are now part of MFF negotiations."

The multiannual financial framework (MFF) defines the budgetary priorities of the EU for the next budget period (2014-2020). The EU budget, and as a result the CAP, will face cuts over the next period.

Although it is currently understood that degressivity (the gradual cutting of direct payments to larger claimants) will go ahead as a mandatory measure. However, a threshold for degressivity has yet to be established, and a cap on the largest payments (opposed by the UK government) will most likely be voluntary.

Update 26/ 06/ 2013 17.30

The instrumental players in trilogue negotiations between the European Council, Commission and Parliament today announced that they had come to a broad agreement over the terms of the next Common Agricultural Policy.

Speaking at a press conference in the European Parliament on Wednesday Afternoon, EU leaders said they had agreed to a deal during negotiations in Luxembourg and Brussels this week. The CAP package was due to go before the Parliament Agriculture Committee later in the day.

Though they did not enter into specifics at the conference, speakers said they felt that efforts to make the CAP greener and fairer had met with success. Under the current policy, 80 percent of CAP payments go to 20 percent of claimants. However, by the end of the next budget period, all farmers should receive a minimum of 60 percent of the average national or regional subsidy amount per hectare (though larger claimants' subsidies will be cut by a maximum of 30 percent).

Portugese MEP Luis Manuel Capoulas Santos, who was among the delegation of MEPs negotiating on the reforms said, "On points which are very important to Parliament such as the ban on dual payments, there will be no dual payments to farmers. We managed to incorporate greater transparency and fairness on the CAP on this. Also we managed to strengthen the green aspect of the CAP. Nearly a third of the budget will be devoted to environmental aspects."

Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Ciolos added on the subject of CAP greening, "We have achieved the idea of greening direct payments," which were first proposed by the Commission. He continued, "30 percent of direct payments now, which represent the large majority of CAP, will now go towards agricultural practices which are not just sustainable, but also fully in line with the objectives of sustainable farming."

He added, "We also have specific payments for coupled payments which will go to certain sectors in certain regions so that we can provide special support for fragile areas which are particular important for the territorial balance."

Irish Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney, who chaired reform talks over the past three days, said CAP spending would account for 38 percent of the EU budget in its first year. he added, "For my own country, that's the equivalent over the next 7 years of a 12 billion euro package for farmers in Ireland. And all of you have similar significant budgetary concerns."

However, European Greens' agriculture spokesperson José Bové rejected the agreement as "the politics of everyone for themselves."

He said, "This is a sad day for Europe; the spirit of the Common Agricultural Policy has disappeared. Heads of State and Government have turned a page by more or less allowing a re-nationalization of the CAP. Member States won against the communitarian ideal of solidarity and equality: it is the politics of everyone for themselves wins."

Bové lamented that, even if it goes through as a mandatory measure, the ceiling on subsidy payments (one of the leveling proposals aimed at making the CAP fairer), currently set at €300,000 is much too high to prove effective. He pointed out that the current threshold would only affect 35,000 of the EU's 13 million farms.