Agricultural Europe is waking up to a great uprising. Germans, French, Romanians, Lithuanians and Poles are protesting. There is more and more talk about strikes in the Netherlands and Belgium. It hasn’t been this hot in the agricultural world for a long time. Farmers are clearly showing the European Union a red card. Is the Spring of Nations coming?
One thing is certain – it hasn’t been this hot for a long time. The protests spreading across Europe are this time aimed not against national politicians, but against the policy of the European Commission. Farmers are saying enough is enough for the Green Deal and further restrictions imposed on them.
It’s already the Spring of Nations!
Yes, it is already the Spring of Nations. Well, this is what it looks like, because this is how irresponsible management ends, this is how the farmers’ voices are not respected. If something is introduced without public consultations, or if there are consultations, they only mean that it is just a flower for a sheepskin coat, then it ends this way – says Wiesław Gryn, the leader of the protest in Zamość.
Poles protested, one might say, culturally. Two-hour road blockades in nearly 300 places in the country show the strength of the Polish countryside, but they are far from throwing manure at offices, as was the case in France.
The French lost patience
The only question is how long their patience will last, because the French have certainly run out of it. The protests spread with the force of a hurricane. Farmers fill highways with soil and mock that 4% of roads throughout the country should be fallow and 80% should be covered with green cover.
Farmers throughout Europe are affected by the same standards and restrictions originating from the European Union. The EU is rapidly imposing a policy on us that, on the one hand, is ultra-liberal – free trade agreements that allow the import of agricultural products produced without complying with our sanitary and environmental standards. On the other hand, we – in Europe – are obliged to limit production, and our means of production are taken away – e.g. plant protection products – explained Le Floc’h. This clearly shows the belief that the inhabitants of Europe should not be fed with their own production, but should replace it with imports. And this is what we are against,” declares Veronique Le Floc’h, head of the Coordination Rurale trade union, organizing protests in France.
The Germans showed the strength of farmers
But we’re not just talking about France and Poland. The farmers’ protest initially broke out in Germany in December last year. Here, the German government promised to finance the transition to clean energy, but despite the willingness to keep these commitments, the local government presented a draft budget rejected by the German Supreme Court, according to which a PLN 60 billion hole was created in the country’s finances. Thus, Chancellor Scholz had to limit spending and make cuts, which particularly affected farmers who faced tax increases and reductions in agricultural subsidies, with the abolition of some important fiscal privileges, including those for diesel oil.
Another threat is the start of Ukraine’s accession process to the EU. The cuts decided by the German government are also related to the support Berlin wants to provide to Kiev, but local agricultural companies are concerned that Ukraine, considered a world agricultural power, may affect the distribution of community subsidies.
It’s also getting hot in Italy
Let’s move on. This time targeting Italy, where farmers also took to the streets. The protest is aimed against the EU’s agricultural policy, which is considered too restrictive, but also against the approach of traditional industry organizations.
We are apolitical, we do not stand for anyone, otherwise everything will end in failure. This is our agricultural battle, said Danilo Calvani, who heads the Committee of Betrayed Farmers (Cra). – Let the entire Parliament gather and discuss our requests together, senators and deputies, majorities and opposition. Let’s see if they are close to us, let’s do something urgent,” Calvani said again. “We no longer have any income, and we are additionally burdened by the stationary vehicles of our grandparents, old cars that do not work and have not been used for years,” Calvani emphasizes. – Every day there will be more and more of us, something extraordinary is happening.
The increasingly widespread farmers’ protests not only do not arouse surprise, but also cause understanding.
Farmers today are asked to do much, more and more. They must provide agri-food products, preferably at a low price, but at the same time healthy and environmentally friendly; they must provide energy, among others through biomass; they must take care of the landscape; they must guard dams and other existing infrastructure facilities. We don’t always realize it, but the burden on their shoulders has increased significantly over the years, says Sébastien Abis, 42, general director of Club Demeter* in Paris, an organizational and research center founded in 1987 and specializing in the agri-food industry . – The world of agriculture is therefore tired, especially as it has mobilized during the pandemic to meet the needs of European society (…) The context is full of contradictory or difficult to reconcile aspects. Public policy is not always coherent. They ask for high-quality nutrition, but at the same time cheap and environmentally friendly. International agreements themselves contain this contradiction or inconsistency.
Farmers call for cooperation
Protesters join forces at the international level. They support each other and say they will not give up.
We are not extremists, just people putting food on your tables; You can live without politicians, but you can’t survive without farmers, says Sieta van Keimpema, secretary of the Dutch organization Farmers Defense Force (FDF).
– Let’s join forces. We must act together. We cooperate with our German colleagues from LSV (Landwirtschaft verbindet Deutschland – an agricultural organization founded in 2021), with Polish colleagues from the Institute of Agricultural Economics. We invite all farmer leaders in Europe to contact us and act together. We need to convince people to vote very carefully on June 6-9 (European elections). The inhabitants of each country know best which parties have never helped them, never really stood up for them. This is the simplest criterion, he adds.
This is now an open call for a strike across Europe. Smaller or larger protests are taking place in virtually all EU countries. We are also talking about protests in Lithuania, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Austria, Switzerland and even Scotland.
– Farmers across Europe realize that, despite significant differences in individual countries, the fate of farmers across the EU is at risk for one reason: overzealous green policies and a lack of interest, or even contempt, for farmers and ordinary people living in rural communities – said Helen O’Sullivan from the Irish Farmer’s Alliance.
Farmers fear that EU policy aims directly at eliminating agriculture in the community.
This is why new restrictions are being imposed on farmers in the EU. Their main effect is a decline in production, the disappearance of independent farmers and an increase in imports from outside the EU. Not only do we not know where it actually comes from and how it is produced, but the prices are increasingly higher and food safety is not guaranteed. Not to mention animal welfare, argues van Keimpema, emphasizing that Europe needs food produced locally. Food from our countries, from our regions, is the best, the most sustainable and the safest. Europeans need European food,” says Sieta van Keimpema.
Complaints to the European Commission are one thing. Farmers take to the streets with demands to their governments. And here they differ slightly. However, EU hosts unanimously claim that both national policies and pan-European agricultural policy are harmful, and they themselves are ignored.
These two things are dominant today. The green deal means the immediate stopping of fallowing, or allowing the sowing of fertilizers earlier than March 1, says Wiesław Gryn, the leader of the protest in Zamość.
– We can’t lose. We must sow fertilizers when the soil is moist, not when the spring periodic drought comes. There are, of course, many more demands. We would like to cooperate with the ministry, but it cannot be that we meet, but as always, the authorities are right. The authorities in the Ministry of Agriculture have changed, but we can see that the spirit has remained the same. Today we are waiting to be taken seriously and to be partners in talks – he adds.
Is Brussels starting to fear?
Brussels is starting to make panicky moves. It was as if she had just now realized that the matter would not go away this time. On January 25, the first meeting in the so-called series took place. strategic dialogue on the future of agriculture, the establishment of which was announced by the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, in the summer of 2023. As the head of the European Commission emphasizes, the problems of protesting farmers will not be solved quickly, but the forum is intended to contribute to the exchange of opinions.
I think we all feel the growing division and polarization when it comes to agriculture-related topics, von der Leyen said at the meeting kicking off the dialogue in Brussels.
The meeting, which was supposed to be the beginning of a new dialogue, only angered farmers, especially since it turned out that representatives of not only agricultural organizations and food producers, but also many ecological organizations were invited.
