by Hundreds of tractors plowed through Brussels city center on Thursday and angry farmers pelted the European parliament with eggs. Although agriculture was not on the agenda for EU leaders meeting just up the road, politicians may find themselves ignoring those complaints at their peril.
Here’s a look at what’s behind the farmers’ protests sweeping Europe over the past few months – in countries such as Greece, Germany, Portugal, Poland and France, where a motorway blockade in Paris shocked the government this week.
Some concerns concern the country, such as a plan by Berlin to phase out a tax break on agricultural diesel to balance the budget, or a requirement in the Netherlands to reduce nitrogen emissions. But many are shared across the continent.
Farmers have said there are falling selling prices, rising costs, heavy regulation, powerful dominant retailers, debt, climate change and cheap foreign imports, all within an EU agricultural system based on the premise that “more is more better”.
Costs are up, prices are down
Farmers’ costs – particularly on energy, fertilizer and transport – have increased in many EU countries, particularly since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. At the same time, governments and retailers, at remember the effect of the cost of living crisis on consumers moved to reduce rising food prices.
Farm gate prices – the base price farmers receive for their produce – fell by almost 9% on average between the third quarter of 2022 and the same period last year, according to Eurostat data analyzed by Politico, with just a few products – olives included. oil, hit by shortages – buck the trend.
Imports are also a problem, especially in central and eastern Europe, where a flood of cheap agricultural products from Ukraine – where the EU waived quotas and duties after the Russian invasion – has reduced prices and increased competition. unfair.
Polish farmers began blocking roads from Ukraine in protest as early as last spring, and while Brussels soon imposed restrictions on Kyiv’s exports to its neighbors, as soon as they passed Hungary, Poland and Slovakia their own.
“Ukraine’s grain should go where it belongs, to Asian or African markets, not to Europe,” the Polish farmers’ union said last month.
Elsewhere in Europe, particularly France, cheap imports from further afield are a cause of great anger. Products from countries such as New Zealand and Chile that do not have to adhere to the same strict regulations as EU farmers are resented.
Negotiations to finalize a wide-ranging trade agreement between the EU and South America’s Mercosur trade bloc have been particularly angry, with European farmers unhappy at the prospect of unfair competition in sugar, grain and meat.
Temperatures rising, tensions rising
Extreme weather events due to climate change are affecting production more: some water reservoirs in southern Spain have only 4% capacity, and wildfires destroyed around 20% of Greece’s annual farm income last year.
Southern Europe has seen few protests so far, but that could change as governments, particularly in Spain and Portugal, consider emergency water restrictions amid record-breaking droughts.
More broadly, apart from being persecuted by a Brussels bureaucracy that knows little about their business, many farmers complain that they feel caught between public demands for cheap food and climate-friendly processes according to apparently.
Related: Hypocritical European politicians undermine climate policies amid farmers’ protests
And with CAP all off…
The common agricultural policy (CAP), the €55bn per year subsidy system on which Europe’s food security has depended for over 60 years, was historically based on economies of scale: bigger farms, bigger holdings, common standards.
This has fueled consolidation – the number of farms in the EU has fallen by more than a third since 2005 – leaving many large farms with high levels of debt in a low-margin business and smaller ones becoming less competitive .
Recently, the farming sector, which accounts for 11% of the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions, has become increasingly concerned about the rules in the EU’s “farm to fork” strategy, part of Europe’s main green deal which is aimed at making the bloc climate neutral. 2050.
Targets include halving pesticides by 2030, reducing fertilizer use by 20%, devoting more land to non-agricultural use – for example, by leaving it fallow or planting unproductive trees – and doubling organic production to 25% of all EU farmland.
Many farmers are already complaining that existing EU rules in areas such as irrigation and animal welfare are being interpreted too strictly. They argue that the incoming green policies are unfair, unrealistic, economically unviable and ultimately self-defeating..
What are politicians doing to quell the protests – and will they succeed?
National governments have taken steps: Berlin announced its plans to reduce diesel subsidies; Paris scrapped a diesel tax increase, delayed other measures and pledged €150m in aid, prompting farmers’ unions to call on members to suspend their protest.
“Everywhere in Europe the question is the same: how do we continue to produce more but better? How can we continue to tackle climate change? How can we avoid unfair competition from foreign countries?”, said Gabriel Attal, the French prime minister on Thursday.
At the EU level, the European Commission has proposed to limit agricultural imports from Ukraine through an “emergency brake”, and to exempt farmers for the year 2024 from the obligation to keep 4% of their land while still receiving EU subsidies.
Emmanuel Macron, the French president, and Leo Varadkar, the Irish prime minister, have said the proposed EU-Mercosur trade deal should not be signed as they are keen to avoid further disruption to an already rebellious sector.
With the farmers drawing more support from Europe’s far-right parties, which are expected to make significant gains in the upcoming European Parliament elections in June, further concessions are more likely. .
