(Brussels) Farmers faced riot police on Monday in the streets of Brussels paralyzed by hundreds of tractors, on the sidelines of a meeting of ministers of the Twenty-Seven ready to revise the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
Like 1er February, the Belgian capital was the scene of a show of force from the agricultural world, standing up against the regulatory “burden”, unfair competition from cheap imports and falling wages.
Some 900 tractors were counted by the police, who barricaded the European district. Without injuries or violent clashes, the face-to-face situation was tense: the authorities responded with tear gas and water cannons to the throwing of eggs, tire burnings and fireworks.
Some 700 foreign demonstrators, mainly from Italy and Spain, were present, according to police.
Under pressure from Member States, the European Commission presented on Monday its first ideas for “simplifying” the CAP rules.
Without defusing the exasperation of the demonstrators, among whom delegations from Spain, Portugal and the Italian Coldiretti confederation rubbed shoulders with the Belgian organizations.
“We have been protesting for months, they keep procrastinating,” annoys Marieke Van de Vivere, who works on the family farm, criticizing the regulatory “madness”.
“We have to pay for the horse that makes manure, the “Green Deal” orders us how to manage the manure, where it goes… it’s mind-boggling.”
“First concrete step”
“So much bureaucracy that we can no longer produce. We need a policy that guarantees profitability and generational change,” says Adoración Blanque, from the Young Spanish Farmers.
After an exemption already approved for fallow land, the obligations to maintain permanent meadows could be relaxed. Several states are also asking for flexibilities on crop rotation.
A tolerance would be granted to farmers not respecting the CAP criteria due to climatic episodes. Finally, reporting requirements would be reduced and inspection visits halved.
“These measures will constitute the very first concrete step to respond to concerns, but it is not enough” and the States “invite the Commission to quickly complete them with new, more ambitious measures,” concluded Belgian Minister David Clarinval, whose the country holds the presidency of the EU.
Beyond these short-term measures, which the European executive could quickly endorse, Brussels has opened the door to “medium-term” legislative revisions, in negotiation with States and MEPs, of the CAP adopted in 2021.
In the immediate future, “we need something pragmatic, operational […] within current rules,” said French Minister Marc Fesneau upon his arrival.
“But certain things require modifying the basic act. Whether this legislative change spans the European elections (in June) does not matter. The important thing is to set a trajectory, to lay the foundations for a CAP which is reassuring” in the long term, he insisted.
At the same time, Paris is calling for amendments to legislation in preparation restricting polluting emissions from poultry and pig farms.
“Bureaucratic monster”
“There is a lot of anger: the current CAP is a bureaucratic monster” and reforms are “necessary” to promote “work in the fields rather than paperwork,” conceded German Minister Cem Özdemir.
But without “false solutions”: “We must guarantee that we can make money from biodiversity. Anyone who advocates a pause in climate protection is anything but the friend of farmers,” he warns, while the specter of an unraveling of green bonds looms.
Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski said he was open to simply making several environmental conditions “incentivized” (fallow, crop rotation, etc.).
“There is support from states and MEPs. It is theoretically possible to achieve this by the summer,” he argued.
Outside of the CAP, “there are elements (of legislation) of the Green Deal which are requested from farmers but not remunerated, this is the heart of the problem”, added David Clarinval.
Agricultural organizations are demanding a “definitive end” to trade negotiations with the South American Mercosur countries, and a “better sharing of value” with manufacturers and distributors.
A “vast” but vital structural project according to Vincent Delobel, goat breeder and administrator of the Walloon Fugea union: “We cannot make a living from our work, the PAC bonuses come in an infusion”.
Another explosive subject: Brussels proposed measures to restrict Ukrainian imports, accused of hampering the markets, but without reassuring. In Poland, farmers are still blocking border crossings.