Ensuring food supply and food security is an objective set out in Article 39 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. However, in a changing risk landscape for EU food supply and food security - public health, technology, migration, geopolitical shifts, industrial or other accidents, and the availability and affordability of key inputs and factors of production - the level of preparedness can and should be stepped up.
To this end, the European Commission has published the Communication (COM 2021/689) Contingency Plan for ensuring food supply and food security in times of crisis. The purpose of this Communication is to identify EU actions and tools to address shortcomings and to provide a better response to future food supply and food security crises, vulnerabilities and dependencies.
This Plan outlines six principles that should be adhered to in times of crisis:
Striving for a collaborative approach between all public and private parties that play a role in the food supply chain;
Ensuring horizontal coordination at political and administrative level, particularly when the crisis originates outside the food supply chain;
Monitoring market imbalances and, where necessary, ensuring swift intervention using available tools, such as those that exist under the Common Agricultural Policy and the Common Fisheries Policy;
Keeping supply chains and trade flows operational, including for non-food sectors that are essential to the functioning of the food supply chain;
Ensuring free movement of cross-border and seasonal workers in the food sector as much as possible;
Providing early, regular and transparent communication to stakeholders and the public to avoid the crisis being exacerbated through inappropriate information.
The Contingency Plan also outlines the European Food Security Crisis Preparedness and Response Mechanism - EFSCM - bringing together public and private actors of the food chain, including the European Commission, Member States, relevant non-EU countries and stakeholders’ organisations, to improve preparedness for threats to EU food security and draw attention to bottlenecks when crises arise.
The EFSCM adopted three sets of recommendations:
a. Recommendations on crisis communication on food supply and food security - July 2023;
b. Recommendations on ways to improve the diversity of sources of supply, among others, between shorter and longer food supply chains - July 2023;
c. Recommendations on ways to mitigate risks and vulnerabilities, including structural issues that put food supply chains at risk - July 2024.
Further stakeholder consultations followed and, in January 2026, the Commission published the third Report on the activities of the EFSCM. This report presents a comprehensive operational framework to identify vulnerabilities and enhance crisis preparedness.
The proposed methodology adopts a multidimensional view of food security, incorporating availability, physical and economic access, nutritional utilisation, stability, sustainability and human agency. Central to this approach is the iterative collaboration between experts, who provide analytical rigour, and stakeholders, who offer practical sectoral insights.
In April 2026, EFSCM-specific sessions were held on the most topical issues regarding European food security:
a. Stockpiling and Collaboration - optimising public-private collaboration regarding food and input stockpiling;
b. Supply Chain Vulnerabilities - urgent responses to supply chain disruptions caused by geopolitical tensions in the Middle East;
c. Input Affordability - the ongoing crisis necessitated broader actions, prompting the European Commission to introduce a temporary State aid framework allowing Member States to offset high fuel and fertiliser costs for operators.
The EFSCM methodology maps complex supply chains, designs plausible disruption scenarios and evaluates cascading impacts. It aims to empower policymakers and industry operators to transition from reactive crisis management to proactive resilience building, ensuring that the EU food system and a Single Market connecting close to 450 million consumers can withstand and adapt to the unpredictable shocks of the 21st century.