Droughts, heatwaves, and abnormal cold during the 2025 growing season caused severe production losses across multiple agricultural sectors, triggering an exceptional Commission response under the EU’s Common Market Organization
The European Commission has adopted an exceptional support measure to compensate farmers in Bulgaria, Estonia and Hungary for economic losses sustained during the 2025 agricultural season as a result of extreme weather events. This new measure allocates a total of €21.5 million in EU emergency funding, distributed across the three affected Member States on the basis of the scale of the damage and their relative weight in the EU agricultural sector.
The legal basis for this intervention is Article 221(1) of Regulation (EU) 1308/2013, which establishes the Common Market Organisation (CMO), the framework governing agricultural markets across the Union. This provision allows the Commission to act through exceptional measures when a specific problem arises that cannot adequately be addressed through standard market intervention tools or disease-related measures. The Commission determined that the climate damage suffered by these three Member States met that threshold, given the scale of the affected cultivated area and the resulting income losses threatening the economic viability of farms.
The three countries experienced markedly different but equally damaging meteorological conditions during the 2025 growing season. In Bulgaria, severe droughts and prolonged heatwaves from late June through August reduced sunflower and maize production significantly. In Estonia, the season was characterised by an unusual combination of spring frosts, persistent cold, exceptionally heavy rainfall and unexpected temperature spikes, which severely damaged spring wheat, barley, feed peas, spring rapeseed, potatoes, and fruit and vegetable crops. In Hungary, extreme heat and acute water scarcity between June and August caused severe thermal stress across sweetcorn, melons, sorghum, oil radish, maize and popcorn crops.
The regulation acknowledges that adverse climate events are becoming more frequent across the Union in the context of broader climate change risks to agriculture, but identifies the 2025 conditions in these three countries as extraordinary in their intensity and geographic scope.
The €21.5 million is distributed as follows: Bulgaria receives €7.4 million, Estonia €3.3 million, and Hungary €10.8 million. These figures reflect each country’s share of EU direct payment ceilings under Annex V of the Strategic Plans Regulation (EU) 2021/2115 adjusted for the relative severity of the events. All disbursements must be made to final beneficiaries by 30 September 2026 to qualify for EU financing. Payments made after that date are explicitly excluded from Union co-financing.
Each Member State retains discretion over how to channel the funds, provided it applies objective, non-discriminatory criteria tied to actual economic losses. The regulation does not prescribe a per-farm payment formula, leaving distribution design to national authorities. Crucially, Member States must ensure that where farmers are not direct recipients (for instance, where the aid flows through producer organisations or intermediary bodies) the full economic benefit is passed through to the farmer.
One of the more significant features of this regulation is the authorisation for Member States to supplement EU funding with national aid up to 200% of the EU allocation, meaning Bulgaria could deploy up to €22.2 million in total, Estonia up to €9.9 million, and Hungary up to €32.4 million, if they choose to commit national budget resources. This top-up must be paid by 31 December 2026 and must also comply with the non-discrimination and no-market-distortion conditions. Member States are expressly required to account for any other national or Union support already received for the same losses, to avoid double compensation.
The regulation also allows these emergency funds to be combined with support from the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF) and the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD), giving national authorities considerable flexibility in designing comprehensive support packages.
