Score 0-20: Statement openly promotes unconditional EU funding for agriculture OR uses emotional/critical language about farming hardships to push for more funding. Markers: explicit calls for a larger CAP envelope; higher Pillar 1/Pillar 2 amounts; additional crisis reserves; real-terms increases; strong opposition to proposed cuts; urgency about farmer incomes; explicit rejection of conditionality as a burden on farmers ("stop the red tape," "direct payments without strings").
Score 21-40: Subtly favours increasing EU agricultural funding. Markers: defending the current CAP envelope (2021-2027 level) against proposed reductions; calls to "preserve" or "maintain" current funding; support for keeping CAP as a separate, ring-fenced fund (opposing merger into a single EU fund); institutional defence of CAP's two-pillar structure; concern about renationalisation reducing common EU support.
Score 41-60: Defending the Commission's 2028-2035 MFF proposal, which already represents a relative reduction in agriculture's share of the EU budget. KEY INSIGHT: agriculture's nominal amount stays roughly flat while the total MFF grows — "ring-fencing" in this context means accepting a share decrease, not protecting current real-terms support. Markers: "what goes to the farmer is maintained" while accepting the overall envelope reduction; procedural or structural statements with no position on funding amounts; statements about CAP governance or simplification without any view on the budget level. NOTE: a score of exactly 50 as scorer fallback almost always signals a pro-funding statement that should be in the 21-40 range — genuine neutrality is rare in this debate.
Score 61-80: Subtly or explicitly favours reducing unconditional EU agricultural support. PRIMARY SIGNAL — SCORE HEAVILY HERE: ANY advocacy for conditionality on agricultural payments — eco-schemes, green ring-fencing, climate performance requirements, biodiversity targets, animal welfare conditions, social conditionality, do-no-harm criteria applied to CAP — scores in this range. Conditionality means farmers must comply with additional requirements to receive payments; it is functionally a reduction of unconditional state aid, regardless of how it is framed. Other markers: "better targeting" or "efficiency" framed as reducing total spending; support for merging CAP into a single EU fund where it loses visibility; arguments that agriculture must serve broader public goals rather than farmer incomes.
Score 81-100: Openly argues that EU agricultural funding should be cut or that other EU priorities should take budget share from CAP. Markers: explicit calls to reduce the CAP envelope; framing CAP as an outdated or inefficient fiscal burden; arguing that defence, digital, or industrial investment should be funded at agriculture's expense; calls to phase out or dramatically reform direct income payments.