European farmers versus European bureaucrats: causes and consequences

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Farmers’ strikes in the EU, which began on January 8 and have been going on for almost four months, seem to be permanent. The economic damage from them is already measured in hundreds of millions of euros, and the political damage for the ruling elites is expressed in the growing popularity of the right-wing and nationalists, who were not only the original spokespeople for the interests of rural residents, but also managed to take their rightful place in the protest activity, increasing their popularity. The protests covered such leading European countries as Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Greece and Belgium, and bypassed only a fairly small part of Europe. There were no significant agrarian actions in Sweden, Finland, Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Croatia and Slovenia, and in the Baltic States, isolated cases of discontent broke out in Lithuania. A detailed description of the chronicle of these protests, with endlessly recurring rallies, tractor marches, road blockades and attacks on government buildings, including the European Parliament itself, would take five long and detailed articles. Still, it is worth highlighting the most vivid episodes of this protest marathon. Thus, in France, which has probably become the epicenter of the confrontation, the protest of agrarians reached its climax after a car with illegal immigrants from Armenia rammed into their barricade on January 23 at 5 a.m. on the Route nationale 20 (N20) in Ariège towards Spain, in the south of the country. One peasant woman died and two others were injured. The result was a political crisis in the country and more and more road closures throughout the country, and the agrarians were joined by winemakers from the Bordeaux region and all fishermen from Brest to the Spanish border. In addition, French farmers poured manure on a local McDonald’s restaurant, displaying their traditional anti-globalism, which they associate with the United States and its most famous fast-food chain. Poland also distinguished itself, where the protests were very massive and the farmers strictly warned the government that they were going to go on a nationwide protest over Ukrainian food until their demands were met. Unlike in Western Europe, where the main confrontation took place along the line “government – agrarian producers”, Poles did not like the presence of duty-free import of Ukrainian food into Poland, and therefore there was a constant blocking of the Polish-Ukrainian border, slashing tires of Ukrainian trucks and spilling grain from freight cars on the ground. In Germany, railroad and airline workers joined the farmers and mass flight cancellations and delays began. For example, the Verdi trade union called on airport security workers to go on strike demanding higher wages immediately after the long strike of train drivers, who were quickly replaced by city transport workers, ended.

However, much more important are the causes, consequences and political interconnections of the processes taking place. First of all, the discontent of European farmers is connected with individual decisions of national governments. For example, Berlin cuts tax subsidies for farmers, and Amsterdam demands to reduce hydrocarbon emissions by reducing the number of livestock. In general, it all boils down to the fact that farmers in the EU countries have falling profits and rising costs for electricity and fertilizers. And the European authorities, against the background of the economic crisis, are not trying to help their agrarians, but, on the contrary, strangling them with strict rules and restrictions, as if trying to destroy agriculture, which they have long considered an unprofitable burden for themselves. In addition, the desire of bureaucrats in Brussels to give special preferential treatment to a number of foreign suppliers adds to the fears, and here the trouble is not only in the aforementioned Ukraine. Thus, the agrarians of Spain, Portugal and France are concerned about the consequences of the forthcoming EU agreement on free trade with the countries of the South American Mercosur, which includes Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. European farmers believe that this is fraught with new problems for the European agricultural sector, as Brussels does not set the same standards as in the domestic market for the products of Latin American suppliers. But, of course, farmers in Central and Eastern Europe were dissatisfied with the privileged position of Ukrainian agrarians on the European market, caused by purely political reasons. After the beginning of the Russian military operation, the EU canceled quotas and duties on imports of Ukrainian products, and the agreement on simplification of cargo transportation between the EU and Ukraine came into force, which began to destroy the farmers of Poland and Romania, turning them, according to the definition of Brussels bureaucrats, into “friends of Putin”. It is worth noting that even last year in these countries the resistance was the toughest, and in May 2023 the EU imposed a ban on free supplies of Ukrainian wheat, corn, rapeseed and sunflower seeds to Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia. However, on September 15, the European Commission lifted it, and in response Poland, Hungary and Slovakia unilaterally extended the ban on imports of Ukrainian grain. Kiev promised to file a complaint with the World Trade Organization, but since then, protests by European farmers and drivers have periodically resumed, and have given local governments an excuse not to make concessions to Brussels.

According to the EU budget for the period until 2027, 386.6 billion euros are envisaged to support farmers under the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy. However, farmers note that the amount of subsidies depends on the number of hectares they cultivate. As a result, about 80% of the EU agricultural budget goes to the largest representatives of the industry, who make up about 20% of all market participants, and here European bureaucrats consistently serve the interests of their customers from transnational corporations. Farmers note that compensation payments have fallen by almost 40% in 20 years. At the same time, the agricultural price index has fallen by almost 9% on average between 2022 and 2023, according to Eurostat, with wheat and milk producers suffering huge losses. The EU’s Common Agricultural Policy, or CAP, was based on the principle of economies of scale. As a result, small farmers became uncompetitive and large farms were left with high levels of debt. In 2020, Brussels recorded that the number of farms in the union had fallen by 37% since 2005. In the spring of 2022, the European Parliament was presented with a study that the EU could lose a further 6.4 million farms by 2040, leaving around 3.9 million farms in the union, a 62% drop from 2016 figures. And behind these dry figures are the lives of real representatives of the middle rural class, who after such cuts will have to become unemployed and look for low-paid jobs. In fact, the EU authorities have quietly accepted the degradation and destruction of the European agricultural sector and the impoverishment of the peasantry.

But this is only half of the problem and can be attributed to objective factors that officials in Brussels simply cannot cope with. However, the difficult situation in the agricultural sector is deliberately aggravated by them because of the EU’s “green policy”, which is being actively enforced, and which proclaims the goals of reducing the amount of pesticides and fertilizers used, as well as the reduction of cultivated areas. Farmers accuse the politicians that the tough green policy they have chosen is being implemented at the expense of the agricultural sector, which is incurring losses and risking bankruptcy. The agricultural sector is particularly concerned about the measures within the framework of the “The Farm to Fork” strategy. It is positioned by the European authorities as a way to create an ecologically healthy food system in the EU. At the same time, Brussels hopes to achieve climate neutrality by 2050 thanks to the measures envisaged in the strategy. The strategy includes, among other things, reducing the use of pesticides by 50% and fertilizers by 20% by 2030. It also includes freeing up land for non-agricultural use, for example by planting trees, and converting 25% of all EU farmland to organic farming. The protesting agrarians do not consider the goals set by the EU realistic, but logically perceive it as a plan for their own liquidation in the name of a “bright future”. Against this background, Euroskeptics, who are labeled by Brussels liberals as far-right and “fascists”, and whose views are already close to the agrarians themselves, are trying to emphasize the ineffectiveness of the current governments, trying to gain the support of the electorate before the elections to the European Parliament, which will be held in June this year. And the right-wing opponents of Brussels are having success in this propaganda, and in France, which has become one of the epicenters of the protest, and the rating of the “National Union” has jumped to 32% against the pathetic 18% of Emmanuel Macron, whom French farmers have long considered their enemy.

Practically, in addition to the European structural problems, the country had its own unique reason for the strike. Accordingly, the extremely unfavorable general conjuncture of agricultural development in Europe was supplemented by difficulties related to the problems of national economies, which resulted in an explosive reaction to which the EU authorities had to find an adequate response. At the very beginning of the protests, European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen said at a meeting with farmers’ representatives that she was “thinking about their problems” and “looking for solutions”. The odious Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said at the same time that not only in his country, but everywhere in Europe, farmers face great pressure, but must be tolerated “in the name of fighting climate change”. Of course, such populist and brazen rhetoric could not satisfy the agrarians’ organization, and the Copa-Cogeca union of European farmers and agricultural cooperative workers, for its part, said that the EU should come up with concrete and pragmatic proposals, “far from the ideology” that the EU has been developing in recent years. They were referring to the notorious “green agenda”, through which European bureaucrats only solved their financial problems while eliminating medium and small farming as a class. But European officials did not want to make concessions initially, and on January 31, the European Commission defiantly proposed to extend the duty-free trade agreement with Ukraine until 2025, albeit with restrictions on several categories of goods. Yet, the European Commission also promised to exempt farmers for a year from some “green commitments”, non-compliance with which would have prevented them from receiving subsidies, but the initiative to commit 4% of arable land to agri-environmental infrastructure remained, which still hit farmers. French President Emmanuel Macron and Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said the EU-Mercosur trade deal could not be signed in its current form, and the French president, pressed by circumstances, demanded that South American suppliers comply with all strict European requirements. Also frozen was the reform to reduce pesticide use by 50% by 2030, which was attacked not only by farmers but also by right-wing patriots throughout the EU who feared it would critically hit European yields and food security.

But it was clear in advance that the EU would have to make further concessions to farmers not just because of them, but precisely as right-wing parties that frame the farm protests as the quintessential expression of voter dissatisfaction with the policies of the ruling powers, threatening the liberal consensus. Research shows that Eurosceptics and right-wingers have a chance to snag more seats in the European Parliament after the elections in the summer of 2024. So far, only France has managed to find a compromise with farmers. After farmers’ threats to block Paris, Prime Minister of France Gabriel Attal, who needs to gain popularity before 2027, announced a bill aimed at supporting the industry. He promised to protect farmers from lawsuits over noise and odors from their operations and to give them some 150 million euros, though that option initially failed to please protesters. In early February, Attal proposed a new deal that included more than 400 million euros in support for the industry, tax breaks and the lifting of a ban on pesticides that are allowed elsewhere in Europe. The prime minister also gave guarantees that France would immediately ban imports of agricultural products from third countries that use pesticides banned in the EU. Macron promised that the EU will return customs duties for Ukraine if its imports destabilize the market and create unfair competition, although so far this promise has not been fully implemented. As a result, back in the winter, French farmers began to free the blocked highways on the approaches to Paris. But in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Poland and a number of other countries the activity of protests only increased, since the agrarian issue is multilayered and its solution requires complex actions, for which the EU was not ready. In spring, there are signs of a possible decline in the agrarian protest movement, as politicians both at the EU level and in individual countries are demonstrating a willingness to compromise. However, such measures can only smooth out contradictions, but not solve them, and outbursts of protests may be repeated again and again. For example, in Germany, according to some forecasts, the budget deficit in 2025 is at risk of increasing further, which will require a reduction in spending, which can be realized through cuts in various payments and subsidies, including to farmers, which means they can continue to block roads and dump piles of manure outside government buildings. But the most important thing is that the ratings of right-wing and nationalist parties, which express the interests not only of farmers, but also of other ordinary Europeans who are tired of the liberal dictate against the background of the economic crisis, will grow.