The aim of the paper is to discuss the major opportunities and challenges that emerge in the agri-food sector as a result of digitization processes. Digital technologies with Big Data and the Internet of Things are widely considered promising new tools for both increasing productivity and competitiveness in the agri-food sector and ensuring a more sustainable use of resources. Knowledge and insights derived from ever-increasing volumes and a variety of digital data may help to optimize farm production processes, improve risk management, predict market trends and enhance strategic decision-making capabilities. Yet, advanced data analytics has also the disruptive power to reshape the whole string of markets within the agriculture value chain. Digitization may fundamentally change the relations between technology and input suppliers, farms, traders, processing units, retailers and consumers. The first evidence shows that farm data markets suffer from specific drawbacks and limitations which may constrain the transformative potential of Big Data in the food and agriculture sector. The major concerns raised relate to farm data ownership and privacy issues, market power of major agriculture technology providers and uneven distribution of benefits accruing from digitization.

In February 2020 the European Commission announced a new strategy for data in which an innovative proposal to create a single European data space composed of many sectoral common data spaces, including the agriculture sector, was presented. It is expected that the common agricultural data space will provide support for delivering a smart, innovative and sustainable agri-food system from farm to fork. Based on the analysis of framework conditions for pooling and sharing agricultural data in the EU and the Commission’s initiatives in this area, this article aims to discuss how and to what extent the common data space in agriculture could contribute to environmental, economic and social sustainability in the EU. It was concluded that the achievement of sustainability goals with the help of the planned common data space remains challenging, particularly in the context of rapid, but uneven pace of digital transformation in the agri-food sector in the EU. Overcoming legal, technical and other barriers to data sharing in the EU will not remove the fundamental problems of limited representativeness of current agricultural data assets in the EU. The design of the common data space in agriculture as well as the rules for data access and use should therefore be carefully considered. Also, specific and datarelated intervention measures, e.g. under the CAP, would be needed both to decrease the problem of a fragmented farm data landscape and to respond to the growing needs to collect and share private farm data that are highly relevant to achieving broader social goals and sustainability.

This paper discusses the transformation from analogue to digital agriculture (smart farming) and the laws and regulations affecting the governance of agricultural data in the EU. It is argued that the current legal and policy framework in the EU is insuffi cient to serve the needs of responsible smart farming systems. Specifi c characteristics of farm data and patterns in farm data collection and use contribute to market failures in agricultural data markets and hence to the insuffi cient provision of public goods through agriculture. The key parts of the smart farming data value chain are shaped by private contractual agreements between farmers and agricultural technology providers that do not take into account the potential negative externalities of established data fl ows. There is a strong rationale for a new data economy for EU agriculture, implying a greater involvement of the state in the smart farming data value chain. Interventions would be needed both to support the ecosystem for datadriven innovations in farming and to minimize the risk of new economic and social inequalities in the agriculture sector. The creation of an EU-wide farm data repository under the auspices of EU institutions and integrating public agricultural data with private farmers' data subject to anonymisation and aggregation can be seen as a fi rst step towards a new data economy for EU agriculture. Also, the Common Agricultural Policy should be more involved in and committed to the process of the digital transformation of farming in the EU.

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this article characterises national preferences of the EU Member states in previous negotiations on the EU Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) and analyses them in the context of both budget negotiations for the 2021-27 period and the future of the European integration. it has been concluded that the EU Member states preferences concerning the shape and size of the EU budget after 2020 will remain differentiated. the changing balance of payments and receipts to and from the EU budget will determine how the EU Member States assess the need to finance specific measures and actions at the EU level. Recent EU budget beneficiaries, currently on the path to reach the level of wealth of the net payers, will join the group of countries wishing to freeze the EU budget. the worsening budgetary position of many net payers will also probably strengthen their reluctance to continue financing the EU activities. The growing Euroscepticism of European societies will certainly hamper negotiations directed towards increasing the effectiveness of the EU budget. As a result, political conditions and social preferences will build up the pressure to reduce the EU budget in the future. Also, it is hard to expect any significant transformation in the structure of the EU spending in the years to come. On the one hand, Member states recognise the importance of new funding priorities (e.g. to deal