Associated Press
Tue, March 26, 2024
A woman on a bike rides between two tractors near the European Quarter, during a demonstration of farmers outside of a meeting of EU agriculture ministers at the European Council building in Brussels, Tuesday, March 26, 2024. Tuesday marks the third time this year that farmers will take to the streets of Brussels with their tractors. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)
BRUSSELS (AP) — Dozens of tractors on Tuesday sealed off streets close to European Union headquarters where the 27 EU agriculture ministers were planning to discuss the crisis in the sector that has led to months of protests across the bloc.
The farmers were protesting anything from what they see as excessive red tape to increased environmental measures, cheap imports and unfair trading practices. “Let us make a living from our profession,” read one billboard on a huge tractor blocking a main thoroughfare.
Even if smaller than previous demonstrations, the impact on the Belgian capital was sizable during the morning rush hour, and authorities asked commuters to stay out of Brussels and work from home as much as possible.
With protests taking place from Finland to Greece, Poland, and Ireland, the farmers have already won a slew of concessions from EU and national authorities, from a loosening of controls on farms to a weakening of pesticide and environmental rules.
Earlier this month, the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, proposed weakening or cutting rules in areas like crop rotation, soil cover protection and tillage methods. Small farmers, representing some two-thirds of the workforce and the most active within the continent-wide protest movement, will be exempt from some controls and penalties under the new rules.
Environmentalists and climate activists say the change in EU policies under the duress of protesting farmers is regrettable. They say the short-term concessions will come to haunt the bloc in a generation when climate change will hit the continent even harder.
Politically, the bloc has moved to the right over the past year. The plight of farmers has become a rallying cry for populists and conservatives who claim EU climate and farm policies are little more than bureaucratic bungling from elitist politicians who have lost any feeling for soil and land.
EU agricultural ministers to try and get farmers back to their fields
DPA
Tue, March 26, 2024
Farmers with tractors demonstrate through the streets of Granada during a protest. Álex Cámara/EUROPA PRESS/dpa
Farmers are bringing their tractors back to Brussels on Tuesday to protest EU regulations and falling profits while agricultural ministers meet to find a way to appease them.
For weeks, angry farmers have been blockading roads and protesting in front of government offices across Europe, including the EU's Brussels headquarters.
Their actions are already having an effect, with the European Commission shelving a controversial fertilizer ban and proposing to loosen conditions to access subsidies from the bloc's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
Farmers rely on CAP subsidies to stay afloat but payments are conditional on strict environmental protection rules. The commission proposed to ease rules for land use and crop rotation on March 15.
There is a lengthy process ahead before the proposed changes can be added to EU law, as the European Parliament and EU member states need to agree amendments together.
Another matter to be discussed at Tuesday's meeting is the reintroduction of EU tariffs on certain agricultural imports from Ukraine like eggs, poultry, maize and honey.
The EU lifted tariffs on Ukrainian agricultural imports in 2022 to support the Ukrainian economy after Russia's full-scale invasion of the country in February of that year.
But farmers in the EU complained about the sharp rise in imports. They say they want protection from unfair competition, as Ukrainian farmers can produce food at lower costs - not least because they don't have to comply with EU regulations.
EU countries split over nature law in latest blow to green agenda
Kate Abnett
Updated Mon, March 25, 2024
By Kate Abnett
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union's flagship policy to restore damaged nature is hanging in the balance, with a vote to pass the law on Monday cancelled after Hungary unexpectedly withdrew its support for the bill.
The vote, scheduled to take place at a meeting of EU countries' environment ministers in Brussels, was called off after Hungary said it would no longer back the policy - wiping out the already-slim majority of countries in favour and leaving ministers struggling to decide their next steps.
The nature law is the latest EU environmental policy to come under fire as policymakers try to respond to months of angry farmers' protests over complaints including strict green EU regulations. The EU has already weakened numerous green rules to attempt to quell the protests.
"The agricultural sector is a very important sector, not only in Hungary, but everywhere in Europe," Hungary's state secretary for environment Aniko Raisz told reporters. She said Hungary's concerns included the costs.
Alain Maron, the Belgian environment minister who chaired Monday's talks, said negotiations would continue but it was not clear what changes to the law could win over opponents.
"We don't know exactly what are some reasons to be against this law for certain countries... it's possible that they change their mind," he told a press conference.
The law would be among the EU's biggest environmental policies, requiring countries to introduce measures restoring nature on a fifth of their land and sea by 2030. Cancelling a policy at this late stage of EU lawmaking is highly unusual.
Some EU diplomats said countries had already watered down the law during negotiations, and suggested Budapest's opposition was purely political, rather than over a specific policy issue.
EU environment commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius said shelving the law would send a "disastrous signal" about the EU's credibility, especially after the bloc pushed other countries in U.N. negotiations to back stronger targets to protect nature.
"We are fooling ourselves if we pretend that we can win our fight against climate change without nature," Sinkevicius said.
Opposed to it are Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden. Austria, Belgium, Finland and Poland intend to abstain in the vote.
Any one of those eight countries changing position could allow the law to pass. The rest of the EU's 27 member states support the policy.
Spanish climate minister Teresa Ribera said it would be a "huge irresponsibility" to reduce efforts to tackle worsening nature loss and climate change.
The law's aim is to turn around the 81% of Europe's natural habitats that are classed as in poor condition. But the policy has faced a backlash from some governments and lawmakers concerned it would impose burdensome rules on farmers, or clash with other industries.
(Reporting by Kate Abnett; additional reporting by Inti Landauro, Bart Meijer; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Ros Russell)
A major European nature protection plan stumbles at the final hurdle. 'How could we give that up?'
RAF CASERT
Updated Mon, March 25, 2024
Tractors are parked in market square during "a food march" in Kuopio, central Finland, on Friday March 22, 2024 as farmers protest against perceived inequalities in food production profits. (Akseli Muraja/Lehtikuva via AP)
BRUSSELS (AP) — A major European Union plan to better protect nature in the 27-nation bloc and fight climate change was indefinitely postponed Monday, underscoring how farmers' protests sweeping the continent have had a deep influence on politics.
The deadlock on the bill, which could undermine the EU's global stature on the issue, came less than three months before the European Parliament election in June.
The member states were supposed to give final approval to the biodiversity bill on Monday following months of proceedings through the EU’s institutional maze. But what was supposed to be a mere rubber stamp has now turned into its possible perpetual shelving.
“How could we give that up? How could we say ‘We decided not to restore nature,’" a disappointed Irish Environment Minister Eamon Ryan said. “Not deliver on the protection of biodiversity is a shocking statement to the rest of the world,” he added, urging diplomatic pressure so that the bill could belatedly still be approved.
The chances of that happening weren't looking good.
"It is clear to everyone that there is this huge deadlock. And it is not going to be easy to get out of this considering the upcoming elections,” Dutch Climate Minister Rob Jetten said.
The Nature Restoration plan is a part of the EU’s European Green Deal that seeks to establish the world’s most ambitious climate and biodiversity targets, and make the bloc the global point of reference on all climate issues.
The bill is part of an overall project that aims for Europe to become the first climate-neutral continent by 2050, demanding short and medium-term changes and sacrifices from all parts of society to reap the benefits in a generation.
“If you want to reach climate neutrality, you also have to look in the broader perspective of protecting biodiversity, strengthening the nature in Europe,” Jetten said, stressing that such initiatives were necessary.
Ryan agreed.
“It's all connected," he said. "You cannot put climate change to one side and forget nature restoration.”
Even if the plan had a rough ride through the EU’s approval process, the watered-down version was supposed to sail through the final vote.
Under the complicated voting rules, a qualified majority representing 15 of the 27 member states and 65% of the population was needed. It was thought that threshold was safe, until Monday.
“It seems that we don't have a qualified majority anymore because ... Hungary has changed its vote. We have to understand why they do that,” said Alain Maron, a Belgian regional climate minister who chaired the meeting of the EU environment ministers.
The change of heart follows weeks of relentless protests from farmers across the bloc who have argued that reams of environmental laws governing the way they work are driving them toward bankruptcy at a time when food security and self-sufficiency are becoming essential again as Russia's war on Ukraine rages on.
“It is very important to keep flexibility for member states,” said Aniko Raisz, Hungary's environmental minister. When asked if her country could change its position again, Raisz said she “can't promise anything,” while stressing the importance of the agricultural sector across Europe.
"We have to be realistic, and we have to keep in mind all these sectors,” she said.
Monday’s postponement was the EU’s latest concession in reaction to protests that have affected the daily lives of tens of millions of EU citizens and cost businesses tens of millions of euros because of transportation delays. Others have included shelving legislation on tighter pesticide rules, loosening checks and controls on farms, and requirements to let some land lie fallow.
Under the plan, member states would have to meet restoration targets for specific habitats and species, to cover at least 20% of the region’s land and sea areas by 2030. But quarrels over exemptions and flexibility clauses allowing members to skirt the rules plagued negotiations.
Last month, the bill was adopted in European Parliament by a 329-275 vote with 24 abstentions after the center-right Christian Democratic European People’s Party decided to vote against it. Environmentalists and the Greens group were in rapture, thinking it was the last stumbling block.
Despite the long droughts, big floods and heat waves that have swept through many areas in Europe, the postponement of any vote signals a possible pause on such environmental actions to protect economic competitiveness.
Farmers ride tractors into central London in major protest over trade deals
Alexander Butler
Mon, March 25, 2024
Tractor-riding farmers have descended on Westminster to protest against trading arrangments they claim will “decimate” British farming and jeapordise UK food security.
Campaign groups Save British Farming and Fairness for Farmers of Kent have assembled a “go-slow” convoy around parliament with organisers expecting 50 to 100 tractors as well as other farm vehicles.
A few hundred people and six tractors sounding their horns were seen by The Independent at College Green at around 6.30pm on Monday.
One tractor could be seen in front of Big Ben with a banner reading “Save UK food security” draped over its front, as farmers stoodby holding placards.
Another could be seen with a banner reading: “Stop substandard imports” as protesters held placards saying “Beep for freedom”.
Farmers are protesting at Westminster over trading arrangements they claim will ‘decimate’ British farming (AFP/Getty)
Wiltshire beef and arable farmer Liz Webster said: “In 2019, this government was elected with a mandate to uphold our standards and deliver a ready-made deal with the EU which would see British agriculture boom. It is now entirely obvious that they have totally betrayed us all.
“Polling shows that the public back British farming and food and want to maintain our high food standards and support local producers.
“We need a radical change of policy and an urgent exit from these appalling trade deals which will decimate British food.”
Farmers loop around Parliament Square in Westminster (Getty)
Organisers have also criticised labelling that allows products to bear a union flag when they have not been grown or reared in Britain.
Ms Webster claimed the current situation was “like going out with the English football team to the World Cup and saying ‘off you go, you’ve got chains on your legs and chains on your hands’. We are completely and utterly disadvantaged”.
Trade deals with New Zealand, Australia, and 11 other countries after entry to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, an Asia-Pacific trade bloc, along with a lack of import checks, were allowing lower standard foods into the country, she added.
Organisers claim British farmers are ‘utterly’ disadvantaged within current trade deals (Getty)
Jeff Gibson, founder of Kent Fairness for Farmers, said: “It’s so important that our message about substandard imports, dishonest labelling and concerns for food security is heard.
“With an election looming, we want to ensure the next incoming government takes up our cause.”
Geoffrey Philpott, a cauliflower farmer in east Kent, who is bringing three tractors to the rally, said: “I hope to be farming for many years to come, but if things don’t change, I won’t be and I won’t be employing the 14 people who work for me.
“Then we will be reliant on foreign produce that will not have the high standard of UK production. Once that happens, we could be held to ransom over supply and pricing.”
Farmers take part in a tractor ‘go-slow’ through Parliament Square (PA)
It comes after similar demonstrations in Kent saw dozens of tractors clog roads around the port of Dover in a protest against cheap imports in February.
French farmers also moved tractors to block routes in Paris earlier this year, urging the government to do more to protect the country’s agricultural sector from foreign competition, rising costs and low pay.
The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs was approached for comment.
Tractors bring rush-hour chaos to London as farmers stage protest
Albert Tait
Mon, March 25, 2024
Farmers protest at Westminster - Vuk Valcic/Shutterstock
Farmers brought rush-hour chaos to Westminster on Monday as dozens of tractors descended on central London streets.
Tractors carrying Union flags or towing haybales displaying the message “Back British Farmers” caused tailbacks as they took part in a “go-slow” convoy to protest over risks to food security.
Amid growing fury from the farming industry at what it says are “substandard imports and dishonest labelling”, around 70 tractors carrying signs reading “no farmers, no food, no future” filtered past Downing Street and Parliament Square from around 6pm.
Amid a series of demands for an end to new trade deals, which farmers claim have hurt their interests, Downing Street made it clear on Monday night that it would be willing to pause trade talks if UK interests were not being furthered.
The campaign groups Save British Farming and Fairness for Farmers of Kent launched the protests over concerns about increasing difficulties faced by the farming industry, which they say are leaving the nation’s food security at risk.
They called for an end to trade deals they say are allowing imports of food produced to standards that would be illegal in the UK and are undercutting British farmers.
Organisers also criticised labelling that allows products to bear a Union flag when they have not been grown or reared in Britain.
The French ambassador's car is caught in central London traffic as the farmers protest - Leon Neal/Getty Images
Protesters gathered at the A20 in Wrotham, Kent, before travelling 25 miles into London, where they met at New Covent Garden Market in Nine Elms, south west London, before making the journey towards Westminster, where they continued to drive around the area into the evening.
At one point the farmers were greeted by Nigel Farage, the former Brexit Party leader, who gave them a thumbs up and spoke to a driver.
Around 70 tractors drove around Westminster, carrying signs with messages including “we need your support”, “fairness to British farmers” and “stop killing farming”.
They were conveyed by police on motorbikes while officers on foot directed traffic. Long queues of cars formed as the protest, combined with rush hour traffic, caused delays.
As they reached Westminster and slowly moved down Victoria Embankment at speeds of 15mph, the tractors were cheered and applauded by pedestrians.
Lines of tractors pass the Cenotaph in central London on Monday - Paul Grover for The Telegraph
Farmers had travelled from around the UK and as far as Northern Ireland to take part in the rally. Among them was Chris, 54, who shouted to The Telegraph from his tractor that he was “fed up with politicians” and said: “We’re showing them that we’ve had enough.”
Another farmer said: “It was very important for me to come and show the Government the outrage they are causing farming communities.”
Those cheering on the tractors included Kate Bastable, 53, who had travelled from Tunbridge Wells, in Kent, with two of her children.
Her husband, oldest son and brother-in-law had left in their tractors earlier in the day and were part of the convoy, which Mrs Bastable said was the first time the vehicles had ever left the farm. “This is for our children and their future,” she said. “We have been farmers all our lives. We just want to be treated fairly.”
She was joined at the protest by her sister, Ruth Pierson, 46, and four of their children, Andrew, 14, Verity, 13, Anna, 11, and nine-year-old Jenny. When asked whether they wanted to be farmers, all four children shouted: “Yes!”
Some of those gathered on the pavement were holding signs protesting against Sadiq Khan’s ultra low emission zone. As specialist agricultural vehicles, tractors are exempt from the charge, but Sue, a 60-year-old protester, claimed: “It’s all linked. It’s a whole agenda.”
The protest in central London came after similar demonstrations in Kent, the latest of which saw 240 tractors rally in Canterbury earlier this month.
Farmers and their supporters gather near the Houses of Parliament - Leon Neal/Getty Images
Liz Webster, the Save British Farming founder, said farmers had been 'totally betrayed' by the Government - Henry Nicholls/AFP
Liz Webster, a Wiltshire beef and arable farmer and the Save British Farming founder, said the situation risked food security and the nation’s health and farmers had been “totally betrayed” by the Government.
Trade deals with New Zealand, Australia, and another deal with 11 countries including Canada, Japan and Mexico, along with a lack of import checks, were allowing lower standard foods into the country, she said.
British producers had also lost the level playing field with EU farmers and within the UK, she added, saying European farmers were still receiving subsidies, had freedom of movement for labour and had continued to have access to British markets, enabling them to undercut UK farmers.
Ms Webster said the current situation was “like going with the English football team to the World Cup and saying ‘off you go, you’ve got chains on your legs and chains on your hands”, adding: “We are completely and utterly disadvantaged.”
She said that at the same time the new English agricultural policy of paying farmers for environmental measures such as habitat creation was taking land out of food production.
“In 2019, this Government was elected with a mandate to uphold our standards and deliver a ready-made deal with the EU which would see British agriculture boom,” she said. “It is now entirely obvious that they have totally betrayed us all.
“Polling shows that the public back British farming and food and want to maintain our high food standards and support local producers. We need a radical change of policy and an urgent exit from these appalling trade deals, which will decimate British food.”
Rishi Sunak's official spokesman insisted British farmers would be at the 'forefront' of future trade deal talks - Gareth Fuller/PA
Jeff Gibson, the founder of Kent Fairness for Farmers, said: “It’s so important that our message about substandard imports, dishonest labelling and concerns for food security is heard. With an election looming, we want to ensure the next incoming government takes up our cause.”
At a briefing with political reporters, Rishi Sunak’s official spokesman insisted British farmers would be at the “forefront” of future trade deal talks.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “We’re always looking at ways in which we can continue to support our farmers and they will continue to have the Government’s backing.
“We’ve said that agriculture will be at the forefront of these trade deals. We reserve the right to pause negotiations with any country if progress isn’t being made, as we did recently with Canada, which I believe the president of the NFU welcomed as a relief for farmers.”
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