Tractors blockaded roads around the EU’s headquarters in Brussels on Monday as ministers met to discuss ways of cutting the red tape fuelling farmers' protests around Europe.
An estimated 900 tractors brought the city’s European quarter to a standstill for the second time in a month. Farmers lit fireworks, burned tyres, hurled eggs and sprayed manure on police, who used water cannon and tear gas in response.
Farmers say they’re angry about burdensome regulations and cheap imports, particularly from Ukraine, as well as falling incomes from agricultural produce.
They point to free trade deals, such as the EU's planned agreement with South American trade bloc Mercosur. Demonstrators say such deals allow cheap, low-quality food from abroad to undercut European producers.
Despite the protests, the European Parliament on Tuesday voted in favour of a controversial "nature restoration" law, intended to reduce the amount of farmland that can be used for food production. Proponents of the law say it will restore biodiversity and degraded ecosystems, but critics say it increases pressure on agriculture.
While farmers’ protests are common in Brussels, this Monday’s demonstrations were the most extreme the city has seen since the anti-establishment “yellow jackets” marches in 2018.
Farmers have also been taking to the streets elsewhere in Europe. In Spain, thousands rallied outside the agriculture ministry in Madrid. One placard read: “The countryside is in the abyss and the government doesn't care.”
Polish farmers blocked a major highway into Germany on Monday, in a two-day protest against EU regulations and “uncontrolled” Ukrainian grain imports. They also set up barriers in the village of Barwinek on the Slovakian border, not allowing any vehicles to pass for the first hour.
On Tuesday, thousands of Polish farmers gathered in Warsaw to protest against the European Green Deal — the European Commission's name for its climate and environmental agenda — and in favour of stricter controls on Ukrainian food imports.
EU MINISTERS TRY TO PACIFY FARMERS' FURY
At the beleaguered meeting in Brussels on Monday, agriculture ministers discussed commission proposals to simplify the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) — a gigantic farm subsidy programme — in a new attempt to pacify farmers.
Before they can receive CAP support, farmers must meet a plethora of conditions, many of them linked to environmental protection.
To reduce the bureaucratic burden, the commission has proposed loosening the rules on land use and farming inspections.
The proposals would also relax some environmental constraints, such as easing requirements for former livestock farmers to convert their land into grassland.
The commission says the number of farm inspections could be halved, and that more leniency could be shown to farmers who fail to meet CAP requirements because of extreme weather.
The commission also withdrew a controversial proposal for a law to cut pesticide use on February 6.
On Monday, ministers asked the commission to “quickly” come up with “more ambitious” measures than those it had presented so far, saying the existing proposals were "not sufficient."
Belgian Agriculture Minister David Clarinval told journalists the reforms are merely the "very first step" to solving the problem.
His Italian counterpart, Francesco Lollobrigida, said: “The new CAP was badly written, the current exemptions are insufficient, we need substantial changes.”
Spainish Agriculture Minister Luis Planas said the commission should draft changes to the CAP before the European elections in June.
Ministers are worried that the farmers' protests could become a boon for far-right parties.
On Saturday, protesters clashed with police and French President Emmanuel Macron was heckled at the Paris International Agricultural Show, one of the world’s largest and most important farming expos.
But environmental campaigners fear ministers will sacrifice environmental protection in their bid to placate farmers.
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), a pressure group, warned that easing environmental rules "plays into the hands of big agri-business" while failing to address ordinary farmers' concerns about "unfair prices and a viable future."
“The European Commission is running around like a headless chicken throwing environmental measures under the tractor,” said WWF's Anu Suono in a press release.
SWEDES TALK IT THROUGH
Sweden is one of the few countries where there hasn’t been much protest from farmers. One reason is better dialogue between the farmers and the government, said Palle Borgström, head of Swedish farming association Lantbrukarnas Riksförbund.
“In Sweden, we have chosen to build trust between farmers and the rest of the society. Protests would be devastating and destroy this trust,” Borgström told Swedish Television.
He said Swedish farmers have also been more successful in getting better prices from the market compared to further south in Europe, where discount chains that drive prices down.
Most major political parties in Sweden are strongly in favour of free trade, supporting deals with Mercosur, New Zealand and Australia.
