13/08/2026
What if Europe’s next strategic dependency is on the dinner table? When we think about Europe’s multiple dependencies, we tend to focus on security, energy, digital platforms or critical raw materials. Yet one of the EU’s biggest vulnerabilities has been hiding in plain sight: protein. Today, the EU relies heavily on imports of high-protein crops used to feed livestock. This dependence leaves European agriculture exposed to geopolitical tensions, trade disruptions and price volatility, raising broader questions about the resilience of the bloc’s food system.
A long-standing protein deficit
The EU has faced a protein deficit for decades. While it is largely self-sufficient in cereals, it imports a significant share of the protein-rich crops needed for animal feed, particularly soybeans and soybean meal. This reliance has become increasingly visible in recent years. Global supply chain disruptions, market instability and geopolitical tensions have highlighted the risks of depending on a limited number of suppliers for a resource that is essential to food production. The lesson Europe has learned in energy applies here too: dependency becomes a strategic vulnerability when an essential resource has too few alternative sources. Reducing that dependency is not simply an agricultural challenge, it is also a strategic one.
The Commission’s Protein Action Plan
To address this issue, the European Commission has presented a Protein Action Plan aimed at strengthening the EU’s domestic production of plant proteins. The plan proposes measures across the entire value chain. These include encouraging farmers to grow more protein crops, supporting research and innovation, improving processing capacity and reinforcing market opportunities for European-produced proteins. The Commission also aims to increase the share of domestically produced protein feed from around 26% today to 35% by 2035.
Beyond reducing import dependence, expanding protein crop production could bring additional benefits. Legumes, for example, improve soil fertility by fixing nitrogen naturally, helping reduce the need for synthetic fertilisers while contributing to more sustainable farming practices.
More than an agricultural policy
If the EU wants farmers to produce more protein crops, there needs to be a viable economic case for doing so. That means addressing the infrastructure and market conditions that currently favour imported feed. Farmers need access to processing facilities, stable markets and appropriate incentives. Research and innovation can help develop crops better suited to European conditions, while stronger value chains can make domestic production more competitive. Otherwise, Europe risks setting ambitious targets without changing the underlying economics. The Protein Action Plan is, therefore, about not only growing more soy alternatives in European fields but about building the infrastructure, markets and incentives needed to make European protein production viable.
The Protein Action Plan reflects a broader shift in the EU’s approach to strategic resilience: just as Europe is seeking to reduce dependencies in energy, technology and critical raw materials, it is also looking to strengthen the foundations of its food system. Increasing domestic protein production will not eliminate imports altogether, but diversifying supply, supporting European farmers and investing in more resilient agricultural value chains could help make the EU less vulnerable to future shocks. Strategic autonomy is often discussed in terms of industrial policy or defence. Yet resilience also depends on something more fundamental: ensuring that Europe can produce more of the resources it relies on every day, including those that begin in its fields.