European lawmakers are pressing the European Commission to adopt an EU-wide definition of industrial hemp that raises the allowable THC level from 0.3% to 0.5%, as they seek to harmonize rules across the bloc and protect the sector from restrictive national actions—most notably, Italy’s sweeping ban on hemp flowers and CBD.
The push came last week from the European Parliament’s Agriculture Committee (AGRI) as part of its position on the next Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), the EU’s massive funding mechanism for agriculture. While the committee’s recommendation is not binding, it signals growing political momentum to secure legal clarity for the hemp sector and resolve years of fragmentation between Member States. In stating its recommendation, the committee said the changes could mean “new economic opportunities” for farmers and other stakeholders.
MEPs Cristina Guarda (Greens, Italy), Luke Ming Flanagan (The Left, Ireland) and Barry Cowen (Renew, Ireland), pushed to insert specific language about hemp in the position.
Why it matters
The AGRI committee urged the Commission to “explicitly confirm” the legality of hemp and establish a unified classification for the crop, which is still treated inconsistently across Europe. The proposed 0.5% limit would reduce the risk that compliant crops are destroyed due to minor overages caused by weather or growing conditions.
Raising the limit would also support CBD producers, as cannabidiol levels tend to rise in proportion to THC—meaning more efficient production. Stakeholders say the goal is to protect farmers while expanding business and investment opportunities, and to meet growing demand across the wellness, food and fiber-related hemp subsectors.
Meloni’s decree
The renewed push in the EU Parliament follows a wave of protests in Italy, where Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government in April issued a decree that reclassifies hemp flowers and extracts like CBD, CBG and CBN as narcotics. The new restrictions effectively outlawed the cultivation, marketing, and possession of hemp flowers—a blow to what Italian trade group Coldiretti says is a half-billion-euro industry involving more than 3,000 farms.
That decree has sparked legal challenges and sharp criticism across Europe. Italy’s highest administrative court recently warned that the ban appears to contradict both EU free trade law and the CAP, which allows farmers to receive support for hemp crops. “The sudden ban on harvesting the inflorescences of an agricultural crop authorized for years, impacting a market even encouraged by the EU, would violate the principle of freedom of economic initiative,” the court wrote in an official opinion last month.
Legal inconsistencies
The European Commission confirmed it has received multiple complaints and is currently assessing Italy’s position. In the meantime, left-leaning MEPs from Italy and Ireland have proposed a parallel initiative under the revision of the Common Markets Organisation (CMO), which would broaden the EU’s legal definition of hemp to include not just seeds and stalks, but also flowers and their derivatives.
MEP Guarda, a key backer of both the CAP and CMO amendments, said the aim is to neutralize Italy’s “security decree” and eliminate the legal uncertainty that continues to haunt the sector. “This would immediately cancel the national ban without waiting for the new CAP to take effect in 2028,” she said.
The proposed 0.5% cap would mark a return to earlier EU norms. Hemp was permitted at up to 0.5% THC before 1984, but the threshold was lowered to 0.3% and then to 0.2% in 1999 to align with more restrictive drug policy. Lawmakers raised the limit back to 0.3% in 2021 after stakeholders argued the lower cap had no scientific basis and was out of step with global markets.
Industry impact
Industry groups have repeatedly pointed to a 2020 ruling from the Court of Justice of the European Union that found CBD extracted from hemp is not a narcotic and may be sold across Member States. But enforcement has remained uneven. France, for example, first restricted and later lifted a ban on hemp flowers and CBD – and now aims to set strict product-specific regulations.
While the AGRI committee’s recommendation is only advisory, the push for a clear, EU-level THC standard as part of a harmonized policy could provide crucial leverage for hemp interests as the Commission prepares its next CAP implementation framework. Without Union-wide approach, industry advocates say, Europe risks stalling a crop that offers clear environmental and economic benefits—and already enjoys wide consumer acceptance.