Tractor protests threaten to bury EU green farming policies

2024-02-25 10:02:02

WESTROZEBEKE, Belgium (AP) — It was the puddles of green mud left by huge tractor tires in Belgian industrial fields that caught the attention of agricultural engineer Ineke Maes.

The sludge contained destructive algae, the result of an excess of chemicals used by farmers to improve their crops, but at a high price for nature. Maes was confident that the European Union’s environmental policies would begin to make a fundamental difference in improving depleted lands.

In recent weeks, some of those tractors came out of the fields onto the roads to block large cities and economic centers, from Warsaw to Madrid and from Athens to Brussels. Farmers were demanding the repeal of some of the world’s most progressive measures to combat climate change and protect biodiversity, arguing that the rules harmed their livelihoods and burdened them with excessive bureaucracy.

And the impact has been enormous.

The agricultural protests affected the daily lives of people across the 27-nation bloc, costing companies tens of millions of euros in transport delays. The complications provoked automatic reactions from politicians at the European and national levels: they committed to withdrawing measures, some developed for years, on issues as varied as the use of pesticides or limits on the fertilizer that can be spread on fields.

For environmentalists like Maes, who works for the Belgian Better Environment Federation group, it would be almost comical if it weren’t so depressing.

“In the environmental movement we joke that we should get our own tractors to send a message. Then we would compete fairly. The goal would be for us to get negotiations and for us to reach an agreement with a democratic process, the rules, you know,” he said. The noise of tractor engines has drowned out reasonable arguments, he noted.

And there is no end in sight.

After hundreds of tractors marked the EU summit in Brussels this month with a roar that kept some leaders awake, farmers are scheduled to return on Monday. They want to be there when agriculture ministers tackle an urgent agenda item, the simplification of agricultural rules, and a reduction in on-farm controls, which environmentalists fear will further weaken standards.

The political noise of the tractors—not to mention the piles of manure dumped in front of official buildings—is noticeable, according to officials. “That puts a little more pressure on the ministers inside. So I think ministers will be more insistent on having more concrete results,” said a senior European official who asked not to be identified because the meeting had not yet taken place.

It is this attitude that baffles environmental pressure groups and NGOs: knowing that scientific arguments are often no match for the law of the street. As a result, the proclaimed European Green Deal, which aims for the bloc to achieve greenhouse emissions neutrality by 2050, is threatened.

“You shouldn’t lose that long-term vision, that vision of the future when working on standards,” Maes said. “One should not respond to the issues of the day by simply eliminating very important standards that have been debated, seriously considered, that have been included in environmental impact reports and so on, and that have also been democratically approved in that way.”

However, before the agrarian protest and the meeting of agriculture ministers, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, for many the most powerful politician in the EU, insisted that she remains “fully committed to achieving solutions to soften the pressure felt by the hard-working men and women who work in the fields.”

Von der Leyen’s change of priorities occurred before the European elections of June 6 to 9, when a good result for her Christian Democratic group, the European People’s Party, will be crucial to keeping her at the helm of the powerful Commission. As her party prioritized farmers and industry, so did she.

“It’s a bit difficult to place Ms Von der Leyen,” said Jutta Paulus, a Green MEP. “In 2019 she started as a climate and environmental champion, basically saying ‘we don’t need the Greens anymore, we are green.’ And now she says ‘well, the industry called me and they’re worried. So I have to do something.’”

The response to the tractor protests was swift and forceful.

The Commission chaired by Von der Leyen shelved an important anti-pesticide proposal this month, insisting that “a different strategy is needed.” It also allowed farmers to continue using land that had previously been left unused to promote biodiversity. And the proposals up for debate at Monday’s meeting regarding simplifying paperwork go in the same direction.

At the same time, a nature restoration law seen as another piece of the Green Deal’s goals has already been watered down to appease farmers before being put to a vote in the European chamber next Tuesday.

And at the national level, politicians have conceded in the same way, whether in France, Spain or Belgium.

Flanders, in northern Belgium, has already relaxed its regulations on the use of manure, which were intended to limit emissions of nitrates that can harm water quality. Under pressure from multinational food companies, whose processing plants far outnumber even the largest family farms in western Belgium, Maes fears that farmers and ranchers are likely to continue industrial methods that deplete soil and contaminate water.

“It is incredible that this whole process is coming to a standstill,” he said.

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