Question and Answer: What do you know about the “Farmers’ Revolution” in Europe?

Germany has witnessed the entry of farmers' tractors into city centers over the past weeks, including Brandenburg Square in Berlin (Getty)

Berlin

- Hot days are being experienced by the agricultural sector in Europe, which reached their peak - yesterday, Thursday - the beginning of this February, after hundreds of tractors gathered in the Belgian capital, near the headquarters of the European Parliament, to protest against the leaders of the European Union, coinciding with a summit attended by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and a group of European leaders.

Farmer protests in Europe are not new, and have been repeated over the past years, but the exacerbation of disputes between agricultural unions and the authorities has led to the spread of the protest infection in at least 10 countries: France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Lithuania, Poland, Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Romania.

It appears that the largest method of protest agreed upon is blocking roads with tractors. There are local reasons specific to each country, and others related to the policies pursued by the European Union, but even the local reasons appear similar, and threaten great economic losses for the countries of the Union.

Al Jazeera Net asked 6 questions about the European farmers’ protests.

Why do farmers reject “free trade”?

What most of the protesters have in common is a request to reconsider a number of free trade agreements that the European Union has concluded or is planning to conclude with third parties. The protesters believe that it harms European agricultural products, due to their cheap prices despite their average or low quality, which leads to reducing the demand for their products.

Among the largest agreements that the protesters reject are those that the European Union intends to implement with the Mercosur countries with the aim of reducing customs barriers. This group includes Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay, and a political agreement was reached with these countries in 2019, but negotiations are still ongoing to complete the deal.

There is another trade agreement with Ukraine that worries farmers. After the Russian invasion, the European Commission suspended import duties on Ukrainian products in order to support Kiev. But the decision flooded European markets with these products, especially the countries neighboring Ukraine, and among these cheap goods there are poultry, eggs, sugar and grains.

Farmers in France and other European countries complain of bureaucracy that hinders the marketing of their products (Getty)

What is the relationship between rising costs and protest?

While cheap products invade European markets, farmers face rising production costs, due to inflation resulting from the Ukraine war, especially the prices of gas, electricity and fuel, as well as fertilizers and raw materials. The EU countries did not provide sufficient support to farmers, according to what they said.

In countries such as Germany, farmers are protesting, before the wave of inflation, against the final prices of some materials, such as milk products and flour, and they see them as very cheap and not compatible with production costs, while consumer protection organizations and the German authorities refuse to burden the population with new costs.

Why do environmental policies complicate matters?

Farmers in some countries, such as Belgium, Greece, and France, complain about the delay in support provided by the European Common Agricultural Policy Fund, or the presence of imbalances in its distribution, or the difficulty of the conditions for obtaining it, including not cultivating 4% of the land that farmers own in order to rest it and ensure the sustainability of agriculture.

But in certain countries, such as the Netherlands, there are other environmental plans that have sparked anger, such as reducing nitrogen emissions by half by reducing livestock and poultry farming. This is a plan that contributed to the emergence of a right-wing party called the Citizen Farmers Movement, which has gained great popularity in recent months.

Environmental movements protest the increase in emissions due to agricultural activity, and vegetarian movements reject the continuation of the animal industry, which prompted the union to try to search for environmental solutions, but this led to the anger of farmers in return.

What are the other problems?

Farmers complain of bureaucracy in several countries, including small farmers who in France need several procedures to begin marketing their products.

Workers' compensation in the agricultural field is also weak compared to other sectors, especially in southern European countries, which forces companies to bring in workers from abroad, due to the population's refusal to work in the fields.

8.7 million people work in agriculture within the European Union, including 934,000 in Germany (and those working in forestry and fisheries), 678,000 in France, and 774,000 in Spain. The number of workers in agriculture declines every year, due to young people heading to other sectors that are less stressful and higher in income.

Are the situations of European countries similar?

The protests in France, the first agricultural force within the Union, appear to be more intense, as the police arrested dozens of protesters this week after storming storage areas and obstructing traffic, as well as in Germany, which has witnessed the entry of tractors into city centers over the past weeks, including Brandenburg Square in Berlin. .

Countries in the Union, such as Spain, Italy, and Greece, suffer from droughts that affect agriculture. Although it was not among the farmers' protest arenas at first, the major agricultural unions in Spain and Portugal decided to join the European tractor protest movement, as Spain is the largest global exporter of olive oil, and is the main supplier of types of vegetables and fruits to several European countries.

Polish farmers were the first to start protests against the "invasion of Ukrainian products", and they were joined by Lithuanians who also protested against the entry of Russian products.

Hundreds of agricultural tractors gathered near the European Union headquarters in Brussels (Getty)

What are the proposed solutions to this situation?

The European Commission proposed a set of solutions to relieve this tension, the first of which was to exempt farmers from the necessity of leaving 4% of their land uncultivated, and it also proposed imposing brakes on Ukrainian products if imports exceed a certain limit.

France proposed several solutions, such as canceling the increase in fuel for agricultural vehicles, reducing taxes on the middle class, including small farmers and agricultural workers, and simplifying administrative procedures.

France is pushing to cancel the deal with South American countries, but the Commission rejected the idea due to the huge volume of trade with these countries. The French moves resulted in the country's largest agricultural union, the National Federation of Farmers' Unions, taking the decision to stop the protests, yesterday, Thursday.

In Germany, the government is still insisting on canceling the exemption for diesel used in agriculture, despite the large protests, but it decided to implement the cancellation gradually, and canceled a tax that it was going to impose on agricultural vehicles. The German government suffered from a large deficit in the 2024 budget that almost destroyed it.

Source: Al Jazeera