Exhausted by an energy crisis, burdened by bureaucracy and angry at efforts to curb their pollution, Europe’s farmers say people are not listening to their plight.
“Over the last few years we’ve spoken out vigorously, but we haven’t been heard,” Europe’s biggest farming lobby, Copa Cogeca, said on Wednesday in an open letter to the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen. “The survival of European family farming as it is known today is in danger.”
Watching tractors trundle through their cities, politicians in offices from Paris to Berlin have taken note of the fury. Farmers scored their first EU-wide win on Wednesday after weeks of demonstrations that have swept western Europe – cheered on by the far right – with Von der Leyen asking member states to delay by one year a key rule to encourage biodiversity and protect soil health. It follows other concessions to farmers from politicians in France and Germany that have so far done little to stop the unrest.
The protests are the latest episode in a growing political backlash which has been brewing for months to the European green deal. Now, with European elections looming and the far right on the rise in several member states, green groups fear efforts to weaken environmental rules are meeting less and less resistance.
Pieter de Pous, a nature expert at the climate thinktank E3G, said: “Macron, under the weight of Marine Le Pen’s pressure, and Von der Leyen, eyeing a second term, find themselves compelled to comply.” The decision to delay the rules did not stand up to scrutiny and raised concerns about the credibility of the EU’s farming policy, he added.
The rules that are to be kicked back until 2025 require farmers to set aside at least 4% of their land for non-productive purposes, or for hedgerows and trees, in order to keep getting subsidies from the EU. Critics say the decision to delay them has less to do with substance of the policy and more to do with appeasing a key voter base. The commission has already delayed the rules once, after Russia invaded Ukraine and threw grain supplies into chaos, because farmers argued they would hurt food security. But now, as the war’s second anniversary nears, cheap grain from Ukraine is one of the main sources of the farmers’ frustration.
“So basically, whether we have too much or too little, the solution is always to destroy nature and intensify production,” said Ariel Brunner, the director of Bird Life Europe. “The justification is openly hypocritical.”
So far, farmers have been the most vocal group protesting against Europe’s climate policies, and governments have been eager to signal support for them – particularly in rural areas that are bleeding votes to far-right parties. The appeasement has led to accusations of hypocrisy in countries such as Germany, where politicians who have criticised climate activists for glueing themselves to roads have cheered on farmers for blocking traffic with their tractors.
Analysts are divided over whether this “greenlash” against climate policy will spill into other sectors and gain widespread support from the public. In recent European elections, such as in the Netherlands and Poland, anti-environment policies played a small role on the campaign trail behind issues such as migration and jobs.
Still, a shift to the right in the European parliament would mean more seats held by parties that deny climate change or oppose action to stop it. While most of the policies that make up the European green deal have already been passed, some in a watered-down form, elections in June could tilt the balance in favour of rolling back rules altogether.
