The European Union (EU) on May 13 adopted revisions to its agricultural rules to address concerns raised by farmers during mass protests across Europe in recent months.
The Council of the European Union, one of the two EU legislative bodies, adopted the changes to its strategic plans, financing, and monitoring regulations of the EU’s common agricultural policy (CAP), according to a May 13 statement.
“The European Commission has adopted a set of proposals to make the EU’s climate, energy, transport, and taxation policies fit for reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 percent by 2030, compared to 1990 levels,” with the ultimate goal of “no net emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050,” the commission said in the statement.
These strict environmental regulations increase farmers’ costs of raising crops, making agricultural products produced in the EU less competitive than agri-food products from outside the EU.
For example, Ukrainian agricultural production does not have to meet the high standards of the EU, allowing Ukrainian agri-food goods to be sold at lower prices in the EU market. The situation was exacerbated when, in order to help Ukraine after Russia invaded it, the EU waived duties on Ukrainian food imports, which affected EU farmers, especially in countries bordering Ukraine, such as Poland.
Revisions to EU Agricultural Policy
The newly adopted revisions will amend the CAP for the years 2017–2023, and the new amended CAP “applies in full from January 2023,” according to the council.These exemptions will apply to 65 percent of farmers who receive EU subsidies but will account for only 10 percent of EU land. This will reduce “the administrative burden for many,” while allowing the EU to maintain its climate-related and environmental goals, the council said.
EU member states will also have more leeway when applying the requirement to keep the ratio of permanent grassland to agricultural area above 5 percent, according to the statement.
The countries will also have more flexibility to grant their farmers exemptions from compliance with some EU standards in cases of extreme weather, according to the statement.
The environmental requirements that farmers must satisfy to receive EU subsidies have also been weakened. For example, the requirement to keep 4 percent of the farm fallow to ensure biodiversity will no longer be a condition for farmers to receive subsidies under the revised law.
The revised regulations will allow farmers to diversify crops instead of employing crop rotation practices.
Farmers’ Protests
Protests by European farmers began in the Netherlands in 2019, when more than 2,000 Dutch tractors blocked highways and roads in response to an announcement that livestock farms would have to be bought out and shut down to reduce nitrogen emissions.The EU’s rule that obligated farmers to keep 4 percent of their arable land fallow or unproductive—now relaxed by the amendments—particularly impacted small-scale farmers.
The farmers’ protests across Europe have subsided, but Polish farmers continue to demonstrate against the EU Green Deal.
The Polish farmers’ trade union “Solidarity” organized a mass protest on May 10 in Poland’s capital, Warsaw, against the EU Green Deal. According to a statement from the group, the deal has caused the destruction of Polish agriculture, rising energy costs, a huge fuel tax, a ban on gas-powered cars, high prices in stores, and huge transportation costs.
Thousands participated, joined by representatives of other branches of the Solidarity trade union, such as miners and workers from the automotive sector.
In a sea of red-and-white Polish flags and Solidarity banners, protesters carried signs with slogans such as “Down with the Green Deal” and ”Green Poison.” Some protesting farmers gave away apples.
“That’s why we are here, because what Brussels is offering us, the Green Deal is not a green deal, it is a red deal,” Wieslaw Czerwinski, a retired farmer from Grojec, Poland, who was giving away apples, told Reuters.
On May 9, a group of as many as 14 Polish farmers entered the Polish parliament. By May 10, five who remained went on a hunger strike, saying that they would not eat until they secured a meeting with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
“We don’t want to drive tractors on the streets and block ordinary, normal people whose lives we actually make difficult. But we have no other way to protest against the fact that in a year or two, there will be no family farmers in Poland,” farmer Jaroslaw Zaremba, 37, said while on a hunger strike.
Green Lawmakers in Opposition
The Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance (Greens/EFA) in the European Parliament opposed the weakening of the environmental rules for farmers.The Greens/EFA group had made “concrete proposals to improve farmers’ revenues [through] a fairer redistribution of CAP subsidies towards small & medium farms, a guarantee that prices paid to farmers reflect the evolution of production costs and better protection against unfair imports from third countries,” it said in a statement that the group released after the legislation was passed by the parliament.
“With this vote, the Parliament is making a mistake, with serious consequences for the survival of farmers and our food security,” Bas Eickhout, a member of the European Parliament and vice president of the Greens/EFA group, said in the statement.
The changes to the EU’s agricultural policy removed or weakened “good farming practice standards that enable farmers to adapt to climate change and reduce dependencies on costly pesticides, fertilizer, and feed,” he said.
Mr. Eickhout asserted that the revisions to the agricultural policy would favor “agribusiness, which will continue to make massive profits at the expense of farmers, consumers, and the environment.”
More than 140 nongovernmental organizations, including Greenpeace, published an open letter criticizing the EU for the relaxation of environmental rules in “an opportunistic attempt to gather a few more votes in the upcoming elections,” referring to the EU parliamentary election in June.
Farmers’ Lobby Group Expresses Support
Europe’s largest farmers’ association, Copa-Cogeca, expressed its support for the revisions to the agricultural policy after the parliament approved them.“The adoption ... is seen as a positive signal to the urgency of addressing the concerns that farmers have expressed during the past few months when it comes to the administrative burden associated with the implementation of the CAP and to the need for immediate applicable solutions,” the group said in a statement.
It urged EU countries to apply the revised rules and enact or revise their national legislations to implement the revised EU policy so the changes can be applied at the farm level this year.
The organization also called on the EU Commission to further simplify the regulations.
