The Agriculture and Rural Development Committee of the European Parliament has voted to accept the agreement that was reached in June on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reforms.

The provisional deal, which was agreed between the then Portuguese presidency of the council of agriculture ministers and a negotiating team from the parliament, was passed today (Thursday, September 9) in three sperate votes.

All three of Ireland's MEPs on the committee - Chris MacManus, Luke Ming Flanagan and Colm Markey - voted to pass the deal on all three votes.

The agreement that was reached at the end of June and passed today by the committee sets out reforms for the CAP 2023-2027. At present, it is expected that the deal will pass all the final hurdles before its full ratification later in the year.

A statement from the committee after the vote said: "MEPs ensured that preserving and strengthening biodiversity in the EU and meeting the EU's commitments under the Paris Agreement will become one of the objectives of the future EU farm policy.

"The also managed to strengthen mandatory climate and environmentally friendly practices, the so-called conditionality, that each farmer must apply to get direct support," the statement added.

The three votes that took place today in the committee were each on a different aspect of the CAP reform.

The vote on the strategic plan passed by 38 votes to eight, with two abstentions; the vote on the common market organisation in agricultural practices passed by 40 votes to five, with three abstentions; and the vote on financing, management and monitoring of the CAP passed by 39 votes to seven, with two abstentions.

The full European Parliament will now have to vote on the deal. There is no date set in stone for this yet, but at present it is most likely to occur in November.

Even though the deal has not been formally ratified, member states, including Ireland, have moved forward with developing their strategic plans for how they will implement the CAP reforms.

Member states will have to decide if they wish to implement the deal as written, or take the options of going beyond the deal's main provision.

Some of key components of the deal are: