Farmers Across Europe Protest High Costs, Reduced Subsidies

Motorways were blocked in France, and columns of trac­tors occu­pied the cen­ter of the German cap­i­tal, Berlin, for sev­eral days. Key roads were cut off in Brussels, the heart and admin­is­tra­tive cen­ter of the European Union, as thou­sands of farm­ers protested across Europe.

High taxes, high fuel prices, delays in sub­sidy pay­ments and the effects of the Russo-Ukrainian War are at the epi­cen­ter of the farm­ers’ demon­stra­tions.

However, accord­ing to Arnaud Rousseau, head of the French FNSEA farm­ers’ union, over­reg­u­la­tion and the ​“incom­pre­hen­si­ble” E.U. poli­cies on farm­ing are the under­ly­ing cause of the farm­ers’ protests.

Rousseau also asserted that the bloc’s Farm to Fork strat­egy for food sus­tain­abil­ity hin­ders European agri­cul­tural eco­nomic growth by heav­ily bur­den­ing its farm­ers.

In the wake of the farm­ers’ demon­stra­tions in France, the most sig­nif­i­cant agri­cul­tural pro­ducer in the E.U., Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, said that the coun­try will seek exemp­tion from some rules of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) to suit the needs of its farm­ers bet­ter.

In addi­tion, French President Emmanuel Macron ques­tioned the bloc’s free-trade agree­ment with the Mercosur group of coun­tries, claim­ing that the imported food prod­ucts from the South American coun­tries would fall short of the European food pro­duc­tion and envi­ron­men­tal stan­dards.

Macron, nonethe­less, sup­ported the E.U. poli­cies on agri­cul­ture, stat­ing that they are not the rea­son for farm­ers’ prob­lems.

In Germany, the phas­ing out of a tax reduc­tion in agri­cul­tural diesel fuel sparked demon­stra­tions by farm­ers, who claimed that it could lead them to bank­ruptcy and asked the gov­ern­ment for finan­cial back­ing.

However, the country’s finance min­is­ter, Christian Lindner, dis­missed their request, cit­ing lim­i­ta­tions in the country’s bud­get.

In Romania, farm­ers have been protest­ing the ele­vated fuel costs, high insur­ance rates and cheap agri­cul­tural imports from Ukraine.

Polish farm­ers also demon­strated against com­pe­ti­tion from Ukraine, argu­ing that Europe should refrain from import­ing agri­cul­tural prod­ucts from the war-torn east­ern European coun­try.

“Ukrainian grain should go where it belongs, to the Asian or African mar­kets, not to Europe,” said Adrian Wawrzyniak, a Polish farm­ers’ trade union spokesper­son.

Protests are also spread­ing to south­ern Europe, with farm­ers in Greece set­ting up the first block­ades on sig­nif­i­cant high­ways and their coun­ter­parts in Spain prepar­ing to voice their dis­con­tent about high pro­duc­tion costs and tight envi­ron­men­tal reg­u­la­tions.

To appease protest­ing farm­ers across the E.U., the com­mis­sion has pro­posed low­er­ing the green farm­ing require­ments con­tained in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) while keep­ing the pay­ments to farm­ers unchanged.

“By tak­ing this sta­bi­liz­ing action, we can help alle­vi­ate the pres­sure that we know our farm­ers are feel­ing to ensure that they can stay eco­nom­i­cally viable dur­ing these times of high uncer­tainty,” said com­mis­sion exec­u­tive vice-pres­i­dent Maroš Šefčovič.

The farm­ers’ demon­stra­tions have come just months before the European Parliament elec­tions in June, fuel­ing con­cern among polit­i­cal lead­ers who fear that Europe’s far-right par­ties will receive sig­nif­i­cant sup­port from the frus­trated farm­ers across the con­ti­nent.

While not on the agenda, farm­ers’ protests were expected to be dis­cussed off-the-record at the European Union lead­ers’ sum­mit in Brussels on February 1^st.

• Politico
• BBC News
• Euro News