The agricultural protest pushes decision-makers to act before the European elections

by Kate Abnett

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Between reductions in environmental standards, limits on imports of Ukrainian cereals free of customs duties and the removal of new regulations limiting the use of pesticides, European decision-makers are striving to calm the protests of farmers, whose demands resonate with voters ahead of the European election next June.

From Poland to Portugal, farmers have obtained notable concessions in response to their protest actions, with the effect of reshaping the “green” policy of the European Union, now around two months before the European elections.

In France, the government is due to present this Wednesday the draft orientation law on agriculture, initially expected earlier this year but which was postponed and reworked after blocking operations carried out by farmers across the country.

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According to environmental activists and analysts, this reversal within the European Union highlights the considerable political influence of farmers, as traditional parties try to prevent nationalist and far-right groups from attracting voters in rural areas.

Once again, last week, farmers blocked streets near EU buildings in Brussels, spreading fertilizer to protest against their low incomes, low-cost food imports and red tape.

At the same time, the EU bloc’s agriculture ministers backed a new series of amendments intended to relax environmental laws linked to the payment of tens of billions of euros in agricultural subsidies.

CREDIBILITY

In 2019, during the previous European elections, environmentalists made significant gains, while young Swedish activist Greta Thunberg was named “Personality of the Year” by Time Magazine.

This year, the European vote will be marked by the stamp of “angry farmers”, declared Franc Bogovic, a Slovenian MEP and himself a farmer.

Rushed efforts to quell farmers’ anger have affected pillars of EU policy, putting the bloc under pressure over its Green Deal and free trade deals.

The European Commissioner for the Environment, Virginijus Sinkevicius, warned last week of a setback for the credibility of the community bloc, after EU countries refused to approve a major text on the protection of biodiversity, casting a veil over the adoption of this law.

Other environmental measures remain pending as the European elections approach.

The European executive was asked last week to ease, or even postpone, a new policy to combat deforestation, which some EU countries consider a potential threat to their farmers.

In France, the Senate opposed the ratification of the free trade treaty between the EU and Canada (Ceta) in March, inflicting a setback on an agreement seen as a symbol of Brussels’ desire to open up European markets and boost competition.

Furthermore, if the EU last month extended the exemption from customs duties for food products imported from Ukraine, the bloc agreed to impose limits on the volumes of these tariff-free imports, in response to the grievances of farmers.

BREAKUP

Some agricultural sector groups admit that the measures implemented by policy makers in response to the protests are likely linked to the June vote, while ensuring that they are not intended to undermine green regulations.

“Our demands (for fair prices) have actually not been heard,” said Leonardo van der Berg, a Dutch farmer and representative of the La Via Campesina association.

Although farmers represent 4.2% of EU workers and generate only 1.4% of the bloc’s gross domestic product (GDP), their protest movement is echoed in rural areas, where discontent with ‘a political class considered distant and questions of cultural identity occupy an important place.

According to a report commissioned by the European Committee of the Regions, published last month, Eurosceptic voters are numerous in rural areas, whose primary concerns – immigration and economic difficulties – benefit populist parties.

An opinion poll carried out by Elabe in January indicated that 87% of French people supported the farmers’ protest movement. In Poland, nearly 8 in 10 respondents said they supported farmers’ demands, according to the Institute for Markets and Society Research.

In France, as elsewhere in Europe, the far right has described the agricultural protest as an illustration of a rupture between the urban elite and the blue-collar workers of the countryside.

If farmers represent a small group, the far right believes it can attract by extension a broader group of rural voters, commented Antonio Barroso, analyst at Teneo.

Far-right parties are striving to present themselves as standard-bearers of agricultural anger, using the movement to illustrate what they portray as the failure of elitist green policies, said Simone Tagliapietra of the Circle of reflection Bruegel. “This is pushing traditional political parties to recalibrate their own priorities.”

More and more voters are supporting the National Rally (RN) of Marine Le Pen, who has called for the suspension of European free trade agreements.

“POLITICAL MAP”

Asked why farmers were so effective in influencing political decisions, European agriculture ministers described them as the engines of the rural economy.

“Everyone needs to eat every day,” Finnish Agriculture Minister Sari Essayah said in Brussels last week, adding that this was one of the essential sectors that the EU must sustain.

His Irish counterpart, Charlie McConalogue, said Europe needed to learn from the disruptions in supply chains caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “We cannot take food security for granted,” he said.

Environmental protection activists say they are concerned about the speed with which green policies are being relaxed, deploring what they describe as political opportunism.

According to Greenpeace, changes to the criteria set for the payment of subsidies under the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) were implemented at lightning speed and in the absence of adequate consultations.

What is presented by European officials as “a set of simplification adjustments is in fact a reform of the CAP developed in a week”, estimated Marco Contiero, director of European agricultural policy at Greenpeace.

“It is a political, electoral map that is used,” he added.

A European Commission spokesperson said the proposals to amend the CAP were “carefully calibrated”, with the aim of “maintaining a high degree of environmental and climate ambition”.

Four European agricultural associations and the bloc’s member states were consulted by the Commission before proposing the measures easing the bureaucratic process for farmers, the spokesperson added.

(Kate Abnett, with Philip Blenkinsop in Brussels and Sybille de la Hamaide in Paris; French version Jean Terzian, edited by Zhifan Liu)