In Valencia, the European far-right is aiming to win over the farming industry's support in the upcoming June European Union elections.
Following a previous meeting held at the MCC – Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's think tank in Brussels – the Spanish platform 6-F joins a dozen European agricultural associations that have created a common front to advance the ideas they share with the European Conservatives and Reformists Group.
"Anyone wearing the Agenda 2030 pin is the enemy of the countryside," says Lola Guzmán, spokesperson for Platform 6-F.
Farmers demand an end to the Green Deal, protection of the European internal market, and the end of free trade agreements with third countries such as Ukraine, Morocco, or the future with Mercosur, which they believe threaten their survival.
"All of this is the consequence of a situation that Orbán is denouncing," a platform member states.
Although the 6-F platform is an independent movement, among its organisers are figures close to the far-right, such as the nephew of Vox's candidate in the recent no confidence motion against Pedro Sánchez, Ramón Tamames.
However, the new pan-European agricultural platform will not ask for votes for a specific party.
"What we have done is put up banners and the logos of the parties that did very bad things for farmers and for Dutch citizens, and we put a red cross on them," says Sieta van Keimpema of the Farmers Defense Force, Netherlands.
She is referring to the 'kick them out' campaign, which contributed to Geert Wilders' recent parliamentary election victory the Netherlands.
"We didn't tell people who to vote for, we just told voters which parties didn't do anything good for our country. So we put a red cross on them and people understood," Keimpema says.
The dispute for the rural vote
New candidacies vie for the rural vote against Vox, but the main agricultural platforms have chosen not to directly contest the elections.
The major organisations seem to have learned from the experience of the yellow vests in France which in 2019 presented direct candidacies for the European elections and did not achieve representation.
All of these elements – such as anti-elitism, Euroscepticism, supposed progressive bias, immigration – fit very well with what Vox says in other areas. Therefore, the more important this issue, the better for the radical right, in Europe and in Spain.
The SOS Rural platform, which encompasses more than 500 organisations from the primary sector, has chosen to try to influence political parties to include their demands in their electoral programs.
"We believe that with one deputy, two deputies, or three deputies, our capacity for influence is quite limited. We need to think big, we need to influence the major political groups in Europe, be it the Popular group and the Socialist group, to try to shape policies in Europe and to try to have a comprehensive vision in Europe," says Javier Poza, general secretary of SOS Rural.
Despite its similarities with Vox, SOS Rural seems to have distanced itself from the more conservative theses of the Spanish far-right party. But protests against EU agricultural policies benefit Vox, according to analysts, just as the yellow vests' vote in 2019 ended up mostly in the Ressemblament party.
"These protests not only have leaders who view many of Vox's statements favourably, or who are directly close to Vox, but they fall within that ideological space that favours Vox," says Andrés Santana, professor of Political Science at the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM)."
"First, the 'bad guys' are those in Brussels who think about 'progressive' issues like the environment and are generating costs for farmers. And we are suffering these restrictions while importing agricultural products from outside; it's a bit like the immigration issue, but in terms of trade."
"All of these elements – such as anti-elitism, Euroscepticism, supposed progressive bias, immigration – fit very well with what Vox says in other areas. Therefore, the more important this issue, the better for the radical right, in Europe and in Spain."
