65 2014 POLITICAL AGREEMENT ON NEW DIRECTION FOR THE COMMON AGRICULTURAL POLICY (CAP) POST-2013 Dona Ion*, Toma Elena*, Dobre Carina*, Roman Lucian** * University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine Bucharest, Faculty of Management, Economic Engineering in Agriculture and Rural Development, 61 Marasti Avenue, 011464Bucharest, Romania, e-mail: ion_dona@yahoo.com * * University of Oradea, Faculty of Environmental Protection, 26 Gen. Magheru St., 410048 Oradea, Romania, e-mail: lucianroman54@yahoo.com; Abstract The first policy elaborated by the EU the Common Agricultural Policy has been a powerful instrument of European unification and, despite demographical and economic challenges, it remains the main common policy. The data demonstrate that, in the new financial framework 2014- 2020, the CAP expenditure for the EU-28 has a decreasing share in the EU budget. In this paper we want to point out the main CAP directions in the interval 2007-2013 and the new directions post- 2013. Our results emphasize the importance of financing agriculture in the Multi-Annual Financial Framework 2014-2020 and the main changes proposed for the next years. Key words: common agricultural policy, CAP post-2013 reform, multi-annual financial framework, changes and challenges INTRODUCTION Over the last five decades, the common agricultural policies have been criticized for their lack of transparency and for the unequal distribution between member states. Since 1992, by successive reforms, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has focused on the market orientation of agriculture, on the introduction of income support mechanisms, and on creating safety nets for producers to improve the integration of environmental requirements, together with strengthening support for rural development. The CAP 2014-2020 has come to implement more equitable and greener measures, while ensuring effectiveness and competitiveness, by introducing fairly distributed and active farmer oriented direct payments, simplified financial management, higher protection against price volatility, etc. The post-2013 CAP reform continues the improvement initiatives in recent decades, maintains the two pillars and focuses on increasing the connections between them, enabling a more integrated approach. This reform aims at contributing to the implementation of competitive and sustainable agriculture in the European Union by introducing measures allowing transfers between the two pillars, by enabling the regional