On 23–24 September 2025, the 2nd BrightSpace Stakeholder Retreat took place in Leuven, Belgium, hosted by the Thünen Institute and moderated by Martin Banse. The lunch-to-lunch workshop gathered project partners, policymakers, and experts from across Europe to exchange perspectives on the future of EU agriculture and to actively contribute to the BrightSpace scenario development process.
Day 1 – Framing the Debate
The retreat opened with a warm welcome by Marc Müller (BrightSpace project coordinator, WSER) and Martin Banse (Thünen Institute). This was followed by a policy update from Barthélemy Lanos (DG AGRI), who outlined the European Commission’s evolving priorities for the post-2027 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
Viktoriya Sturm (Thünen Institute) opened Session 1 by revisiting the outcomes of the first BrightSpace retreat (June 2024), focusing on the Safe and Just Operating Space (SJOS) framework for EU agriculture. She highlighted the SJOS’s key thematic areas—biodiversity, land use, water, nutrient flows, chemical pollution, climate, nutrition, health, economy, resilience, and social equity—and discussed corresponding indicators and thresholds to track sustainability and social equity goals.
Peter Witzke (EuroCARE) presented an update on the BAU baseline for EU agriculture, projecting developments up to 2050 under current policies and trends. Key assumptions include moderate GDP and population growth, slowing technical progress in Europe, and continuation of CAP Strategic Plans, while climate, policy, and market uncertainties will be explored in subsequent scenarios.
The session highlighted the motivation for baseline analysis: providing a reference point to assess risks such as biodiversity loss, climate impacts, dietary shifts, and productivity trends, and to guide corrective policy design. Tools and models such as IMAGE, MAGNET, GLOBIOM, DIA-Health, and CAPRI are being used to refine projections and explore uncertainties.
In Session 2, participants engaged with the concept of a Challenging Baseline presented by Stefan Frank (IIASA), reflecting alternative plausible developments such as higher energy and fertilizer costs, moderate climate impacts, and potential trade barriers. These baselines will inform scenario and sensitivity analyses on future EU agriculture, including food demand, production, emissions, and technological adaptation pathways.
Day 1 concluded with lively discussions, networking opportunities, and a working dinner.
Day 2 – Exploring Future Pathways
Day 2 began with a recap by Martin Banse before turning towards the future. In Session 3, George Philippidis (CITA) introduced four exploratory transition narratives developed within BrightSpace, structured around two major uncertainty axes:
- The EU’s reliance on local vs. global food markets
- The degree of altruism vs. narrow self-interest in society and food systems
The four narratives were:
- 🌐 Go Global – a free-trade, competitiveness-driven model
- 🛡️ Fortress EU – protectionist and production-first
- 🌱 Food Sovereignty – citizen-oriented and nature-friendly
- ⚖️ Sustainable Competitiveness – innovation-driven with sustainability ambition
Through an interactive group exercise, stakeholders were invited to “paint the picture” of how each scenario would play out in practice. This included imagining CAP budget sizes, the evolution of eco-schemes and coupled payments, the role of aspirational EU strategies (e.g. F2F, biodiversity, soil health), biofuels and emissions trading, and the uptake of farming technologies.
The groups exchanged and refined their perspectives, providing rich qualitative input to be integrated into BrightSpace modelling (Task 10.2). This participatory approach ensured that scenario development is firmly rooted in real-world policy debates and stakeholder insights.
The retreat closed with remarks from Martin Banse (Thünen Institute) and Viktoriya Sturm (Thünen Institute), who emphasized the importance of continued stakeholder involvement and reflected on ways to further enrich the dialogue in upcoming project stages.
The two half days in Leuven successfully combined evidence, debate, and creative foresight, providing a strong foundation for the next steps in the BrightSpace project.
✨ A heartfelt thank you to all participants for their contributions, engagement, and openness in co-developing visions for a sustainable and resilient future of European agriculture.
