US nuclear weapons could be stationed in UK for first time in 15 years amid Russia threat


Kate Devlin
Sat, 27 January 2024 

The US is preparing to station nuclear weapons in the UK for the first time in more than a decade amid a growing threat from Russia.

Under the proposals, warheads three times as strong as the bomb which devastated Hiroshima would be based at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk, according to Pentagon documents seen by The Daily Telegraph.

They set out plans for a “nuclear mission” to take place “imminently” at the base.

It comes amid increasing warnings about the prospect of a war with Russia, itself a nuclear power, from British and American military officials.

US nuclear missiles have been kept at RAF Lakenheath in the past but were removed in 2008 at a time when it was considered that the Cold War threat from Moscow had faded.

A Ministry of Defence spokesperson said: “It remains a long-standing UK and Nato policy to neither confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons at a given location.”

The documents also reveal procurement contracts for a new facility at the airbase.

The move is thought to be part of a programme across Nato countries to develop and upgrade nuclear sites in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine almost two years ago.

It comes as senior figures on both sides of the Atlantic warn of a potential war between Nato forces and Russia.

Earlier this week, General Sir Patrick Sanders, the outgoing head of the British army, floated the idea of a “citizen army” to combat the threat. He warned the 74,000 army personnel the UK currently has would need to be bolstered by at least 45,000 reservists and citizens to prepare for possible conflict.

RAF Lakenheath, home of the US Air Force’s 48th Fighter Wing, near Cambridge (AFP via Getty Images)

In response, the government ruled out any move towards conscription, saying that the armed forces would remain voluntary.

Carlos Del Toro, the US navy secretary, has also urged the UK to “reassess” the size of its armed forces given “the threats that exist today”.

Downing Street defended the government’s spending on defence as it pointed out that Britain has been Washington’s “partner of choice” in its strikes against Houthi rebels in the Red Sea due to its "military strength".

Europe’s Gas Rush Spurs $223 Billion of New Polluting Investment

John Ainger
Sun, 28 January 2024



(Bloomberg) -- Europe’s demand for gas is driving $223 billion in new investment to produce the fuel globally during the next decade, according to a new study that casts a spotlight on the region’s broad carbon footprint even as it tries to rein in emissions.

Two US liquefied natural gas companies — Venture Global LNG Inc. and Cheniere Energy Inc. — are set to lead spending on new developments going forward, climate activist group Global Witness said in its report, which analyzes data from Rystad Energy. Industry heavyweights TotalEnergies SE and Equinor ASA are also high on the list.

Overall, the fossil fuel industry is set to invest $1 trillion in gas production for Europe through 2033, it said.

The findings add to indications that Europe’s gas demand is set to continue its upward trajectory — despite efforts to slash emissions — as it rebuilds its energy framework after Russia cut most supplies in the fallout of war in Ukraine. Europe’s consumption of the fuel is forecast to grow by 3% this year — slightly higher than the global average, though lower than the world-leading 4% rate in Asia, according to the International Energy Agency.

Although gas produces less pollution than other fossil fuels, its projects worldwide are under increasing scrutiny for their effects on climate change, raising questions about which facilities will ultimately get built.

The Biden administration on Friday halted approval of new US licenses to export LNG while it studies the climate effects, a move that could disrupt billions of dollars in investment. The Global Witness study was compiled before that decision.

Europe relies heavily on imported gas from the US and Qatar, the world’s top LNG suppliers. It’s also looking to boost production within its own borders to serve as a bridge during the energy transition. Germany, the region’s largest economy, is considering support for a massive expansion of its fleet of gas plants, which could ultimately burn hydrogen.

‘Dangerous Path’

“Europe is hurtling down a dangerous path by doubling down on fossil gas,” said Dominic Eagleton, senior fossil fuels campaigner at Global Witness. He called on the European Commission to set 2035 as a phase-out date for the fuel.

Forecast production for Europe would lead to 6.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere until 2033 — equivalent to more than two decades-worth of France’s annual emissions, according to the group.

Its study analyzes forecast operating and capital expenditures for gas production, compiled by researcher Rystad. The report covers demand and projects for all of Europe, not just EU nations, excluding Russia. Top spenders on total gas infrastructure for the region include some of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies, it said.

Europe has generally been at the forefront of regional efforts to tame climate change. Next month the commission, the EU’s executive branch, will put forward its recommendation for an emissions-cut target of 90% by 2040, while acknowledging that fossil fuels will still continue to play a role, according to people familiar with the matter.

The question is whether the deals signed by energy companies match up to those ideals. In the run-up to the COP28 climate summit in Dubai last year, the EU declared it will push for a global phase-out of fossil fuels well before 2050. Two days later Shell Plc signed a 27-year agreement to buy Qatari LNG for the Netherlands. TotalEnergies signed a similar contract.

Global Witness’ analysis shows that those two companies, alongside Exxon Mobil Corp., Equinor and Eni SpA are set to spend a total of $144 billion on the gas supplies Europe needs over the next decade.

Cold snap helps India's wheat crop but warm weather forecasts pose risk

Mayank Bhardwaj and Rajendra Jadhav
Mon, 29 January 2024 

A worker sifts wheat before filling in sacks at a market yard on the outskirts of Ahmedabad

By Mayank Bhardwaj and Rajendra Jadhav

NEW DELHI/MUMBAI (Reuters) - The current cold snap sweeping central and northern India could help farmers harvest a bumper wheat crop this year, but any sudden, abnormal rise in temperatures will hit yields, officials and growers said, forcing the country to import the staple.

This year's wheat harvest is critical for India, the world's biggest producer of the grain after China. Hot and unseasonably warm weather cut India's wheat output in 2022 and 2023, leading to a sharp drawdown in state reserves.

A third straight poor harvest will leave no choice for India but to import some wheat. The government has so far resisted calls for wheat imports - a seemingly unpopular step ahead of a general election early this year.

A long cold spell helped wheat during its vegetative growth, but a rise in temperatures, expected in the next few days, could impact the crop during the crucial grain formation stage.

"Because of cold weather we're expecting a little better yield than normal 3.5 tons per hectare, and that's why we'll easily achieve the production of the target of 114 million metric tons," Gyanendra Singh, the director of the state-run Directorate Of Wheat Research, told Reuters.

After a slow start to the planting, a run of cold weather has helped the crop, but weather conditions need to remain favourable until early April, growers said.

"Lower temperatures have raised our hopes, but we're keeping our fingers crossed," said Ravindra Kajal from Haryana state in the north. "The wheat crop suffered because of a sudden rise in temperatures in February and March in the last two years."

Although India's fertile plains have seen a chilly winter, a lack of snowfall in the mountainous regions has raised concerns of a sudden, abrupt rise in temperatures.

Both minimum and maximum temperatures in northern and north-western states have started to rise, an official of the state-run India Meteorological Department said. He didn't wish to be named as he's not authorised to talk to the media.

In February, maximum temperatures could be 5 degrees Celsius above normal in Punjab, Haryana, and Rajasthan states, part of India's grain belt, he said

Weather in the next eight weeks will determine the crop size, a Mumbai-based grains dealer said.

India's wheat harvest in 2023 was at least 10% lower than the government's estimate of around 112 million metric tons.

As a result, inventories dropped to the lowest level in seven years, with prices ruling far above the government-set minimum support price, at which state agencies buy the grain from farmers.

Local wheat supplies are drying up, and India needs to import the grain, a grains trader said on the sidelines of a recent commodities conference in Singapore.

The government projects this year's wheat output at a record 114 million metric tons.

(Reporting by Mayank Bhardwaj and Rajendra Jadhav; Additional reporting by Naveen Thukral in Singapore; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)

Climate scientist Mark Maslin: ‘We have all the technology we need to move to a cleaner, renewable world’


Shaoni Bhattacharya
Sun, 28 January 2024 

Photograph: Amit Lennon/The Observer

Prof Mark Maslin studies climate change and human impacts as professor of Earth system science at University College London (UCL) and the Natural History Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen. He recently partnered with the comedian Jo Brand in an online film to “translate” climate science for a wider audience. He is the lead organiser of Love Your Planet with Al Gore’s charity, the Climate Reality Project, and the Climate Cafe at UCL on 14 February.

We’ve just heard officially that 2023 was the world’s hottest year, and that we are likely to breach the temperature rise limit of 1.5C warming above pre-industrial levels in the next 12 months. What are your thoughts on that?
Last year being the hottest on record was something we knew was going to happen at the end of 2023. Two hundred of the 365 days last year were the hottest ever recorded for that particular day, which gives some idea of how huge this was. The temperature is 1.48C above the pre-industrial – close to the 1.5C limit [for this century] that was set up by the Paris agreement in 2016 – so we are worryingly close to it. We also know that El Niño [a natural weather pattern] is starting in the Pacific Ocean and always adds some warming. So in 2024, we could break the 1.5C limit temporarily.

Last year we saw many extreme weather events: heatwaves, wildfires and floods – can we expect more of the same in 2024?
In 2023, there were over 220 extreme climate events. There was a 30% increase in fatalities caused by climate events on the previous year. We saw massive heatwaves in North America, southern Europe, China and Asia. We also saw wildfires. And lots of underreported events. For example, east Africa had huge long droughts and catastrophic flooding. There was no continent that was not affected by extreme weather events – and our ability to cope with them is getting less. A lot of people have said to me: “Oh it was a rubbish summer in the UK.” We had the hottest July on record. We had a slightly warmer than average August, and it was the second hottest year ever recorded in the UK. But because people are now expecting southern England to be like the French Riviera, if we don’t have 30C weather in August they go: “Ooh it’s not a good summer.” No. We shouldn’t be having summers like that. Ever. Two years ago we had a 40C heatwave in London, which had us climatologists with our jaws on the ground. We were predicting [40C] for the 2040s… The expectation of many climatologists, including myself, is that 2024 could be hotter than 2023, and with more extreme weather events as El Niño really takes hold.

You’re a professor of Earth system science at UCL – tell me about your main research?
I study climate change in the past, present and future. My research is incredibly wide ranging: I study early human evolution in east Africa, the evolution of the Anthropocene and how human impact has changed through history, and the impacts of climate change on society now and in the future. I also look at resource crises in the future.

You and your colleagues released a study on private jet flights and the carbon footprint estimates of travel to the Cop climate meetings just before Cop28 in Dubai last month. What were your findings?
We looked at all private jet flights to Cop26 and 27. We are working on Cop28 now and will be releasing that at the end of this year. What we’re not trying to say is world leaders have to go on commercial jets – because we want them to turn up to Cop meetings – but what we are saying is maybe all 100,000 people at Cop28 didn’t need to be there. Please don’t get me wrong: Cops are really important. This is a place where 198 countries come together as equals. So when you have a statement that says we are going to transition away from fossil fuels – which is signed by everybody – it has real weight.


Renewable energy will give us cleaner air, which means less loss of life due to things like asthma and chest infections

You recently featured in a short online film for Climate Science Breakthrough with comedian Jo Brand – who translated your words to get the message across. For example, her interpretation of governments giving subsidies to fossil fuel companies was: “Even the dinosaurs didn’t subsidise their own extinctions; who’s the stupid species now?”
Jo Brand is an amazing person. We have very similar views and backgrounds. She worked for the NHS; most of my family work in the NHS… We have similar political views. When my mother was alive she loved telling the story of when she was pregnant with me and she had to drag the coal home because they couldn’t afford to have it delivered. That tells you, one: that we were poor. And two: we had a coal fire, not central heating. So growing up in that sort of austerity means that Jo and I have a connection. There’s one point in the film where we’d been chatting about how we could make Britain better and Jo turned and said: “Oh Mark, I really think you should be prime minister.” And I said: “Jo, do I really want that job?” And she went: “Yeah, maybe not.” I said: “How about we do it together?” And she said: “Oh that’s a good idea!” And it was that comedy gold, that lovely rapport, which I think comes over.

Might you be looking at a career in comedy?
No, I’m very happy to be the straight man! This communication of climate change, human impact on the world etc is incredibly depressing and can make people feel powerless. So there is always a little bit of humour running through everything I do. Also I try to talk about positives. Because in climate change there are so many solutions: things that we should be doing anyway. So renewable energy, guess what? We get much cleaner air, which means that we have less loss of life due to things like asthma and chest infections. Yes, tick, tick, tick. We have energy security because it’s our own energy so we don’t have all these incredible price rises. Fossil fuels are 19th- and 20th-century technologies. We have incredible technology now. Therefore, why don’t we move into the 21st century and make things better?

Is there room for climate optimism then?
We have all the technology we need to move to a cleaner, renewable world. All the stats are showing incredible growth: we have exponential growth in solar, wind, EV batteries, which is all fantastic. We also have politics – 90% of the world’s economy says it will be net zero some time this century. That’s huge. We are transitioning away from fossil fuels. It should have been 30 years ago, but it’s now. The signalling is great, but we have to do it faster.

You’re organising a “Love Your Planet” event at UCL next month. What does it involve?
The Climate Reality Project has got together with UCL to produce a day of panels, talks and networking on the green transition. How do we get business, politicians, academics and activists all working together to make this happen quicker? We also have hopefully a few positive words from Al Gore himself, in a short video introduction. It’s on Valentine’s Day. If you have a loved one and you’ve forgotten, I will be reminding you that you should at least text – even without Jo Brand, I’m using humour to try to engage people, and to think about their relationship with their loved ones, but also with their planet, which is their home. And it’s the only one we have. Just like we nurture our relationships with other people, we really should be nurturing our relationship with our own planet.

A wolf killed the EU president’s precious pony - then the fight to catch the predator began


Patrick Barkham
Sat, 27 January 2024 

Photograph: Getty Images

LONG READ

It was a mild, windless night, sometime before dawn on 1 September 2022, when a large grey wolf trotted out of the woods beside Beinhorn, a hamlet of old barns and graceful wooden houses in the German state of Lower Saxony. The keen nose of the male wolf almost certainly scented that Dolly, a pretty chestnut pony with a white patch on her face, was vulnerable. The 30-year-old pony, kept in a paddock close to stables and a farmhouse, was not protected by high-voltage electric fencing designed to deter wolves. It was an easy kill. In the morning, Dolly’s body was found in the long grass; her owners spoke of their “horrible distress”.

Unluckily for the wolf, and perhaps for the entire wolf population of western Europe, Dolly was a cherished family pet belonging to the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, one of the most powerful people in the EU. Last September, a year after Dolly’s death, von der Leyen announced plans that to some wolf-defenders looked like revenge: the commission wants to reduce the wolf’s legal protection.

Action had already been taken against Dolly’s killer. DNA evidence harvested from the pony’s carcass revealed that the wolf was an individual known as GW950m. This mature male wolf, which heads a pack (a wolf family usually numbering eight to 10) living around the von der Leyen residence, appears to have developed a taste for livestock. DNA tests on other carcasses implicates him in the deaths of about 70 sheep, horses, cattle and goats. Experts believe younger pack members might have copied his hunting methods. Because GW950m was now classified as a “problem wolf”, a permit was issued to allow hunters to shoot him legally (wolves can only be killed under exceptional circumstances, according to EU law). It was the seventh such licence to be issued in Lower Saxony, a state the size of Denmark with a thriving population of at least 500 wolves – more than are found across the whole of Scandinavia.


Against the odds, more than a year after the licence to kill was first issued, GW950m remains at large, living quietly on a diet of mostly deer in forests east of Hanover. If the survival of this one wolf appears improbable, so is the species’ revival in north-west Europe. Wolves were mostly wiped out in Germany in the 19th century. But since one first trotted back from Poland in 2000, they have reconquered the country, which is now home to more than 180 packs – about 1,500 wolves. Their offspring have recolonised Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark. Wolves are expanding their territory from the Alps too, with the population growing from zero in France in 1992 to 140 packs. In Spain, wolves have bounced back from near extinction in the 1970s to more than 2,000 today.

Wolves have adapted swiftly and surely to human-dominated landscapes. But people are struggling to adjust to the wolves. The concentration of packs, von der Leyen declared when announcing the commission’s review of wolf protection laws, “has become a real danger for livestock and potentially also for humans”. In December, the commission proposed to reduce the wolf’s status under the Bern Convention from “strictly protected” to “protected” in order to introduce “further flexibility” – potentially enabling wolves to be hunted and populations reduced across the EU. Many populist politicians across Europe hope that talking up the threat of the wolf – alongside tough measures to tackle it – will win support ahead of next summer’s elections to the European parliament. It’s a low-cost way of showing rural voters you’re on their side. “Wolves are a subject that might change elections,” says one German conservationist.

* * *

People have woven myths, stories and fears around wolves since human culture began. For wolf-lovers, the animal’s recovery after it was hunted to extinction in much of Europe is a vital sign of hope – that nature can be restored; that humans can peacefully coexist with fellow predators; that the environmental benefits of returning an apex predator will cascade through the landscape. The impact of wolves returning to Yellowstone national park in the US – reducing grazing herbivores and allowing diverse vegetation to flourish – has caught the popular imagination (a YouTube video, How Wolves Change Rivers, has been watched 44m times), although scientists point out that wolf impacts have been overstated. On the other side, wolf-haters claim that this ruthless carnivore’s return has been naively championed by the tofu-munching wokerati who know nothing of the countryside, elevate the welfare of animals above people, and inflict misery upon farmers, hunters and country folk.

The wolf’s revival in western Europe is actually an interesting accumulation of accidents. Before its return, EU member states including Germany pushed to ensure that this disappearing species was given the highest protection under the EU’s habitats directive in 1992. When the cold war ended, many eastern European farms were abandoned, meaning that Russian populations found it easier to pad westwards. When the wolf reached Germany, it found hiding places on disused military bases – and, initially, sympathy.

“If wolves had returned 50 years ago, they wouldn’t have stood a chance, because our view of nature was very different to today,” says Kenny Kenner, a wolf expert who collects sightings and DNA data on wolves for the Lower Saxony government, and leads walks to educate people about this fascinating, complicated animal. “We see ourselves as part of nature and, much more importantly, as dependent on nature. This led to the possibility that a species as difficult for us as the wolf could come back.”

I join one of Kenny and Barbara Kenner’s weekly walks in search of wolves in Göhrde forest, 75 miles north of where Dolly was killed. For all the wolf’s wild symbolism, it is thriving in human-dominated landscapes: the intensively farmed countryside and even suburban areas of eastern Germany with human population densities higher than the city of Newcastle. Wolf packs also live close to cities such as Turin in northern Italy and Brașov in Romania. This 75 sq km forest is much more sparsely populated, however, and the heart of the local wolf pack’s territory of around 300 sq km. Each pack usually numbers around 10: a mother and father alongside their yearlings (young wolves from the previous year’s litter) and their pups.

Kenner knows this pack intimately because he tracks their paw prints and droppings, and has placed camera traps all over. The female, GW432f, is tawny and, unusually, larger than her partner, GW1559m, a pioneering male. Kenner calls him Alpino, because he is one of the first wolves from the Alpine sub-population to trek more than 600 miles to join the burgeoning German subpopulation. Alpino settled here because someone illegally shot the resident male. So when Alpino moved in, he didn’t just mate with GW432f but also with her daughter, producing 15 pups in 2022 rather than a standard single litter. For Kenner, this is a powerful example of why shooting wolves won’t control their population: disrupt a pack, and you may end up with more wolves.



The wolf is a predator, he needs to take care, but he has to take risks, too – that’s why he won’t learn from being shot

Twenty minutes from the nearest road, wild boar have been rootling on the forest track and Kenner picks up prints in the sandy earth. Ruler in hand, he measures the pad: 9cm. Big enough to be a wolf, and it is fresh. Wolves are great wanderers and take the easiest routes, explains Kenner, using human-made tracks and roads when they are quiet. He positions camera traps at ride junctions, where wolves scent-mark (urinating like a dog) to declare territory.

When Kenner first began these walks, “there was this excitement about how horrible the wolf was”. People were scared to stroll in the forest with their dogs. But that’s changed over time, he says. “We shouldn’t feel threatened, but we should feel awed. Seeing them is an honour. But I wouldn’t want to cuddle them.”

The tracks are probably from the wolves stalking wild boar at dawn. “They can smell time and space – and health,” says Kenner. “What’s important to know is that we are not prey. If we were prey, we would have a gun to protect us.”

The Kenners are dismayed by what they see as populist and right-wing politicians creating a culture war over the wolf. To conservationists, von der Leyen’s comments about risks to people are inflammatory. During the wolf’s 23-year recolonisation of Germany, there are no documented cases of one even growling at a person; boar pose a much more frequent threat. There are no incidents of wolves killing people in the west of Russia in modern times; historic fatalities are from a bygone era when lone children shepherded animals in the forests. “In our society, the danger to children is nearly zero,” says Kenner. In countries such as Finland, wolves sometimes attack trained hunting dogs in the forests, but pets are rarely victims. And wolves are wary of people. Kenner shows me clips from his camera traps. One detects him walking in front of the trap. A few hours later, a wolf arrives, sniffs his tracks and moves swiftly in the opposite direction. “The wolf is not shy,” says Kenner. “He’s careful. He’s a predator, he needs to take care, but he has to take risks, too – that’s why he won’t learn from being shot.”

Von der Leyen, argues Kenner, is using her position “to start a campaign in favour of shooting wolves because of her personal ideas and experiences”. “This is a misuse of power. But it’s not just Ursula von der Leyen. In Lower Saxony, there are a lot of other politicians saying, ‘This is a catastrophe,’ and a lot of fact-free inducement to change policy.”

* * *

Two hours south, on one of the wealthiest streets in Hanover, is the headquarters of Landesjägerschaft Niedersachsen, Lower Saxony’s hunting association. It is in charge of wolf monitoring: its 58,000 sharp-eyed members are a useful, free resource for spotting wolves. According to Raoul Reding, the association’s biologist who oversees the meticulous recording of populations, we are witnessing an unprecedented experiment: “It’s never happened before, anywhere in the world, that such large carnivores would settle such densely inhabited human areas as we have here in Germany.”

The wolf has thrived, explains Reding, because of plentiful deer, but also because it is adaptable. Its pups have a high survival rate and young wolves can disperse to find new territories up to 1,250 miles from where they are born. Other European carnivores, such as lynx, stick more rigidly to forest and won’t travel such distances. Despite Germany’s 180 wolf packs, there is still a vast swathe of southern Germany to recolonise; studies suggest the country could support 700-1,400 packs.

Humans have been rather slower to adapt – and this is particularly true of livestock farmers. Across the city from Reding’s office is Land Volk Haus, HQ of the Lower Saxony farmers’ union. Vice-president Jörn Ehlers hands me two stickers: one depicts a vicious-looking wolf with a sheep in its mouth barred with a red line; the other reads: IF YOU DON’T LIKE FARMING, STOP EATING. PROBLEM SOLVED!

“We don’t want to be so noisy and make a big thing out of this,” says Ehlers. “The problem for us is that we are running out of time. The problem is getting bigger and bigger. The wolf is much faster than politicians.” Wolves first bred in Lower Saxony in 2011; last year, their packs killed about 1,000 farm animals. “We have to accept some damage from the wolf, but what we’ve got at the moment is really too much,” says Ehlers. He wants Germany to adopt the “Swedish solution”. Despite supposedly having to adhere to the EU law protecting wolves, Sweden controversially keeps its wolf population far lower than that of Germany. “In Sweden, about 300 adults are accepted in the whole country,” says Ehlers. “If it gets much over 300, they shoot them.”

Sweden and Finland also have “wolf-free zones” in vast swathes of the north: any wolves that enter areas of traditional reindeer herding are shot. Ehlers argues that Germany should have a wolf-free zone on the pastures beside its North Sea coast, where cattle and sheep graze on unfenced dykes. Here, Ehlers points out, the livestock play an important role in flood protection, because the dykes need to be grazed to keep them clear of trees. And if society wants high-welfare farm animals who enjoy life outside, he says, it will need to tackle the wolf.

* * *

Like many German conservationists, Kenny and Barbara Kenner hope livestock protection fences will solve wolf conflicts and calm rising populist fury. “Protection of livestock will take the hysteria out of the subject,” says Kenny. “If you went to the mayor and said, ‘The fox killed my hens,’ he would reply, ‘You haven’t taken care of them,’” adds Barbara. “You don’t just say, ‘Well, my dear wolf, I hope you won’t eat my sheep.’”

The Kenners recently visited farmers in northern Italy, where wolves have never been driven to extinction, and there is more acceptance of the predator. In mountainous areas that can’t be fenced, actual shepherding has to return, or protection dogs are stationed to stop wolves predating livestock. “They are really astonished that the Germans feed their wolves on sheep,” says Barbara.

In Germany, not every farmer is fighting against the wolf. Thomas Rebre and his shepherding partner keep 300 sheep and 30 goats in the forests of north-east Saxony. “Here in Germany, it’s like every day is Halloween. For the wolves, it’s just meat for their puppies. Our work is to say ‘no’ to the wolf, ‘This is not your meat.’ All these emotions, all this crying – the wolf is not good or evil, it’s just what the wolf does,” he says.

Since wolves arrived, Rebre has invested in electric net fencing which is high voltage – 7,000 volts – but not very tall, 1.05-1.2 metres. Wolves don’t like jumping into an enclosure, says Rebre, but they will dig under fencing, so there are posts every 2 metres, ensuring the fence is tight to the ground. Rebre moves his sheep, and fences, every day, receiving payments for “conservation grazing”. He got financial support from the Lower Saxony government for his fencing, but thinks there should be more funding for wolf-affected farmers. Erecting the fencing takes up to two hours’ additional work each day.

This autumn, Rebre took his sheep into the heart of Göhrde forest to undertake conservation grazing. Kenny Kenner was worried. He feared the wolf would not be deterred by the shepherd’s electric fence, so he fixed 20 camera traps around it. One night, a camera showed the male wolf slink over to the fence to size up the sheep. “It came close, watched them for two minutes, and left,” says Kenner. Rebre’s sheep were unharmed.

“Wolves really, really fear electricity,” says Rebre. In 15 years, he has lost just one animal, a goat, to the wolf. Nevertheless, the farmers’ union insists that fences are not the whole solution. They estimate that it would cost too much – €2.2bn in total – to fence all livestock in Lower Saxony against wolves (conservationists argue it is only essential to fence sheep, calves and foals; wolves are unlikely to kill many adult cows and horses). “We need fences, yes, and that’s our responsibility as farmers,” says Ehlers. “But we also expect to be able to kill problem wolves and keep the population stable, and not see it grow every year and increase the problem.”

* * *

The hunt for von der Leyen’s nemesis, GW950m, has not gone well so far. In Lower Saxony, if DNA evidence proves the same wolf has attacked livestock more than once, a licence can be obtained to allow hunters to kill that “problem” wolf. (This term is disliked by the Kenners: “A wolf who eats sheep may be a problem for us, but it’s just wolf life,” says Kenny. “What’s he supposed to eat? Asparagus?” adds Barbara.) The process is slow, and allows for legal challenges. “This bureaucracy is just not adapted to practical wolf management,” says Raoul Reding of the hunters’ association.

Ironically, a request for a licence to kill GW950m was issued the day before it killed Dolly, the pony, because of other attacks on livestock. Since the licence to kill was approved in October 2022, it has been revoked and reinstated several times after being challenged in court by pro-wolf groups. A fresh permit was issued in October 2023, which was later again blocked by the courts.

Last autumn, hunters thought they’d got their quarry when they shot a mature wolf not far from Beinhorn. It turned out to be his mate, the female. Since wolves returned, licences have been issued to kill seven “problem” animals in Lower Saxony, but killing the “right” wolf is easier said than done. “Under a normal hunting situation, at a distance of more than 100 metres, with bad light, and with the wolf’s dense winter fur, it’s really difficult to identify the age and sex of the animal,” says Reding. “To date, we have shot seven wolves because of huge amounts of livestock depredation, and the ‘right’ wolf has never been killed – the one that has been shown to be responsible.”

For all its 58,000 members, Reding says that many of his association’s hunters can’t be bothered with the hassle of hunting wolves. Wolves are elusive, live at low densities, and most hunters prefer their traditional deer hunt; a wolf kill under licence is usually just “bycatch”. Hunters are also discouraged by the actions of pro-wolf campaigners. Reding says they have sabotaged wolf hunts, putting nails on forest tracks to puncture hunters’ tyres, and even sawing the wooden legs of the “high seats” hunters put in forests. In turn, the head of an illegally killed wolf was dumped on the road outside nature protection charity Nabu’s office in Lower Saxony; wolf conservationists say their vehicle tyres have been slashed too.

And yet, surprisingly perhaps, Nabu agrees that Germany should streamline the process to kill problem wolves, a change that is now even supported by Steffi Lemke, Germany’s federal environment minister (and Green party co-founder). “I think it is possible to make it easier to tackle wolves who make problems,” says Marie Neuwald of Nabu. “It should not take months of bureaucratic processes to get a decision if this wolf should be shot or not.” What Neuwald wants, however, is more transparency to prove a “problem” wolf really is a threat to livestock.

Many hunters and farmers want to go further. Reding thinks “a pragmatic solution” to the difficulties of killing just one wolf could be to shoot the entire pack. But Kenny Kenner insists that shooting wolves to protect livestock “is definitely not going to work. Wolves won’t learn not to eat sheep by being shot.” A study of wolf populations over 25 years in three US states found that livestock losses actually increased after wolf culls because packs were broken up, new pairs formed and the animals appeared to respond by breeding more. In France, where 19% of the population is now shot each year, sheep kills have still risen, from 10,000 to 15,000 each year.

* * *

Wolf debates are dominated by problems, but what of their benefits? A German study found that deer became 1.5kg heavier after wolves returned. “The hunters should be happy. They have 1.5kg more meat per shot,” says Kenner. “The prey is much healthier than before; they are stronger. Diseases that might even spread to humans are prevented because wolves eat the sick.” Forests are healthier and more biodiverse too, he believes, because there are fewer plant-eating deer.

And yet Marie Neuwald at Nabu is careful not to overstate the benefits of wolves. “It is not honest to say wolves will save our ecosystems here, or our forests,” she says. As apex predators in a wild landscape, wolves regulate prey populations. “But in Germany we have a cultural landscape – we don’t have this natural system where wolves are one of the most important puzzle pieces.” Wolves are unlikely to significantly reduce deer numbers because there’s still so much food for the deer.

The Kenners say American friends laugh at “the German angst” over the wolf when North Americans live alongside five big mammalian carnivores (wolf, mountain lion, grizzly bear, black bear, coyote). “The problem in Germany is we have a very emotional outlook on the subject,” says Kenner. For all the usual extremes on social media, I’m struck by the moderation on both sides of the debate in Germany. Frank Fass, a former aeronautical engineer who opened the Wolf Center to educate Germans about wolves in 2010, believes Germany’s wolf population will grow and eventually be considered stable enough to allow an annual cull. “A farmer will say for hundreds of years we had no wolves in Germany and we don’t need them,” says Fass. “I can see their point of view. We don’t need them really, but it is a creature from the universe – as is a bird, a cow, a horse. Coexistence is possible and to live in coexistence with the wolf, it is not a straight road.”

* * *

I head to Burgdorf, a neat little town surrounded by pasture and woods where GW950m is still living free. “I take walks regularly in the forest around Burgdorf,” says local resident Lorenz Reinhard. “The papers are full of wolves, but I haven’t seen any yet.” Can people and wolves get along? “The hunters can’t really kill them all,” he says. “There are two sides to everything – to the wolf as well.”

Will GW950m evade capture? At the scene of Dolly’s killing, horses continue to graze in Ursula von der Leyen’s paddocks, apparently unprotected by anything more intimidating than a couple of strands of electric fence. There is no trace of GW950m in the woods. The scariest thing by far that I encounter in this landscape is the armed police officer striding along the quiet lane, tasked with protecting the European Commission president’s country home.

Big cat species saved by Putin on rampage in Russia after spate of attack

Joe Middleton
Mon, 29 January 2024 

Lutiy, an endangered Amur tiger, roams in his cage at the Wild Animals Rehabilitation Center at the Sikhote-Alin Nature Monument, Russia on Monday, December 5, 2005 (AP Photo/Burt Herman)

The world’s biggest tigers have gone on a rampage in Russia, killing and attacking people in rural villages in the east of the country.

The villagers and their pets are being attacked by Amur tigers, which are seriously endangered and have been the focus of conservation efforts for years by Russian president Vladimir Putin.

In December last year a man and his dog were attacked and killed in the village of Obor, in the eastern region of Khabarovsk, the Moscow Times reported.


According to local police the tiger wandered into the village and killed the man’s dog. The man, who has not been named, followed the tiger into the forest and his body was later found by villagers.

There have been almost 300 cases of tigers entering the area, according to local authorities in the region.

In another incident last year, Sergey Kyalundzyuga was attacked when a tiger smashed through the window of a house.

Mr Kyalundzyuga was on a fishing trip with his cousin, Alexander, when the animal decided to attack.

A source told East2West News: “They heard a noise outside. Sergey went to the window and then a male tiger flew into it, breaking the glass with his head,”

In this photo taken on December 17, 2023, Siberian tigers chase after a live chicken released into their enclosure after a snowfall at the Siberian Tiger Park in Hailin, in China's northeast Heilongjiang province (AFP via Getty Images)

Alexander shot the animal after it caused a number of severe injuries to Mr Kyalundzyuga’s neck, head and arm.

In another incident this weekend a tiger killed a guard dog in the village of Kutuzovka, south of Khabarovsk city, MailOnline reported.

The Russian president has been supporting the rehabilitation of the Amur tigers, also known as Siberian tigers, in the east of the country.

Due to poaching, habitat loss and hunting, the number of majestic beasts roaming the rural east of the country has fallen rapidly since the 19th century.

Putin’s focus on reviving Siberian tigers has meant that the number of adults has risen from around 390 more than a decade ago to 750 in recent years.

At a tiger conservation forum in 2022, he said: “I am happy to highlight the achievements of our colleagues from India, Nepal, Bhutan and China, where the tiger population is steadily growing.”

“We, too, have much to be proud of. No more than 390 adult Amur tigers lived in the Russian Far East taiga 12 years ago.

“Now there are about 750 of them, together with their cubs. This is the result of systematic measures taken by the government, but above all it is the tangible embodiment of hard work and concerted efforts of Russian scientists, enthusiasts and conservation organisations.”

The reasons for the recent spate of attacks are not clear, however it could be linked to destruction of the tiger’s natural habitat, according to conservation experts.

Ocasio-Cortez says genocide accusations demonstrate ‘mass inhumanity that Gazans are facing’

Lauren Sforza
Sun, 28 January 2024



Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said Sunday that accusations that President Biden is enabling genocide in Gaza amid the Israel-Hamas war demonstrate the “mass inhumanity that Gazans are facing.”

When asked by NBC anchor Kristen Welker whether accusing Biden of condoning genocide goes “too far,” Ocasio-Cortez said the accusations instead show that young people “are appalled” at the loss of life in Gaza. She pointed to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which said in a preliminary ruling last week that Israel must contain civilian deaths in Gaza.

“I believe that they are they are — they’re still determining it. But in the interim ruling, the fact that they said there’s a responsibility to prevent it, the fact that this word is even in play, the fact that this word is even in our discourse, I think demonstrates the mass inhumanity that Gazans are facing,” Ocasio-Cortez said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”


She also said recent polls show Americans are concerned with genocide in Gaza. A recent YouGov/The Economist poll found that half of Biden’s voters in 2020 believe the Israeli government is committing a genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

“And so whether you are an individual that believes this is a genocide, which by the way, in our polling, we are seeing large amounts of Americans concerned specifically with that word. So I don’t think that it is something to completely toss someone out of our public discourse for using,” she said.

“But I think what we are seeing here is that the Netanyahu government has lost public support and that we have a responsibility to protect the human rights and humanity of Gazans and hostages alike in the area,” she added.

ICJ President Joan Donoghue said in the ruling last week that Israel must take “measures in its power to prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to commit genocide” against the Palestinian people. According to The Associated Press, the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry has reported more than 26,000 have been killed in Gaza since the onset of the war.

The Hamas attacks on Israel last October left more than 1,200 people dead and resulted in more than 200 people being taken hostage by the militants. A weeklong cease-fire deal in November saw the release of about 100 Israeli hostages from Hamas captivity in exchange for about 240 Palestinians imprisoned in Israel.

UK

Pro-Palestine protesters occupy Barclays branches calling for boycott

Patrick Sawer
Sat, 27 January 2024 

Prostesters descend on Barclays bank in Newcastle city centre - Raoul Dixon / NNP

Hundreds of pro-Palestine protesters occupied branches of Barclays on Saturday, calling for a boycott of the bank over links to Israel.

Activists brandishing banners with the phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” – which many regard as a call for the destruction of the state of Israel – staged an occupation of the Peckham branch in south London.

Similar protests were being held outside branches in London, Derby, Coventry, Ipswich, Leeds and several other towns and cities.

A small number of branches were forced to shut their doors for part of the day as a result of the protests, including one in Oxford which apologised to customers that “due to circumstances beyond our control, we’re unable to open this branch at the moment”.

A branch in Brighton was also occupied, with dozens of activists entering the building and chanting “Barclays Bank, you can’t hide, you’re committing genocide’ as police looked on.

Around 20 activists also held a protest outside the Kensington branch of Barclays, in west London, which is a few hundred metres from the Israeli Embassy.

Several carried banners that read “Barclays blood money”, “ceasefire now” and “stop investing in Israel’s crimes against humanity”.

Chanting over a megaphone, the group were heard calling for the bank to “divest now” and claimed the institution had “blood on their hands”.

Motorists passing the protesters on the busy high street honked horns and waved to the crowd in shows of solidarity, as activists shouted “Barclays, Barclays, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide” and “Barclays, Israel and UK, how many kids did you kill today.”

Inside the bank’s Kensington branch, the main counters were closed but self-service ATMs were operating.

Protesters outside a Barclays branch in London call for the bank to 'divest now' - Anadolu

At one stage, two uniformed police officers walked into the branch and were taken downstairs by the on duty manager to discuss the situation.

Dozens of protesters also entered a branch of the bank in central Manchester, with one standing across the main entrance holding a banner reading “Ceasefire Now” as two police officers looked on.

A branch in Brighton was also occupied, with dozens of activists entering the building and chanting “Barclays Bank you can’t hide, you’re committing genocide’ as police looked on.

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), which is organising the pickets along with other groups, told supporters: “As Israel’s genocidal assault on Palestinians continues, take action on Saturday 27 January 2024 to demand Britain stop arming Israel!

“Barclays bank holds substantial financial ties with arms companies supplying weapons and military technology to Israel, used in its attacks on Palestinians.”

Pro-Palestine activists have targeted Barclays since Israel launched its bombing of Gaza in response to the Oct 7 attacks, with calls for a repeat of the boycott of the bank staged by some during the South African apartheid era.

Protesters held demonstrations at Barclays branches up and down the country - Anadolu

The PSC has stated: “Unfortunately, most high street banks hold financial ties with companies complicit in Israeli apartheid. Our research has identified Barclays as a major financier of companies arming Israel. It is therefore the current target of our campaign.”

Barclays has defended offering banking services to firms in the defence and weapons industry.

A spokesman for the bank said: “Barclays is committed to respecting human rights as defined by the International Bill of Human Rights and takes account of other internationally accepted human rights standards and frameworks.

“We have a published statement on defence and security which sets out our policy positions and governs any business activities in the defence and security sector, including setting restrictions on certain financing activities and requiring enhanced due diligence as appropriate on clients in the sector.

“As a universal bank, Barclays provides a range of client services in relation to the shares of publicly listed companies, including those in the defence and security sector.

“Such client-driven activities may result in Barclays holding shares in those companies, for example, through hedging positions, market making, custody and underwriting activity.

“Barclays does not itself intend to make any direct strategic equity investments in the defence and security sector.”

Farmers take to streets across Europe in net zero revolt that threatens EU policy as elections loom

PETITE BOURGEOIS REACTION IS FASCISM

James Crisp
Sat, 27 January 2024 

French police in riot gear stand guard near a burning truck during a farmers' protest in Narbonne on Friday - ED JONES/AFP

The farmers travelled across Europe to make their presence known in Brussels, but they needn’t have bothered.

The EU is already painfully aware of the populist rebellion bubbling up against its net zero plans after a string of dramatic tractor protests that threaten to mushroom into a continent-wide movement as June’s European elections approach.

Disruptive farmers’ protests are nothing new in Europe, but this is different.

Tractors are or have been on the march in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Belgium, and, crucially, the Netherlands.

Would tractor protests have become so ubiquitous were it not for the Dutch farmers, whose fight captured the attention of the likes of Donald Trump and Elon Musk?

While grassroots uprisings like France’s “gilets jaunes” inspired their share of copycat movements, they did not enjoy the same success as the Dutch last year.

A protest slogan and an effigy of a farmer hang from a bridge over the A63 highway to Bayonne, blocked during a protest on Friday - GAIZKA IROZ/AFP

Dutch voters headed to the polls in regional elections in March for a vote that was overshadowed by demonstrations against EU climate targets for nitrogen reduction.

The farmers – in the world’s second-largest agricultural exporting country – were particularly incensed at the plans of Mark Rutte, the prime minister, to buy out and shut down farms to hit the targets.

Their demonstrations, despite occasional outbreaks of violence and accusations that the far-Right had infiltrated the movement, struck a chord far beyond their rural base.

Urban voters were tired of Mr Rutte, the longest-serving prime minister in Dutch history, and the elections became an effective referendum on his 13 years in office.
Political earthquake in Netherlands

In them, voters turned to the Farmers-Citizen Movement (BBB), a party closely associated with the protests.

Launched in 2019, it had a single MP, its leader and founder Caroline van der Plas, a journalist and farmer’s daughter.

But it won a landslide victory in the regional elections to become the largest party in all 12 Dutch provinces.

The political earthquake shook Mr Rutte’s coalition government, which collapsed in a row over migration in July, leading to a general election in December.

That brought another major upset. The winner by a distance in the general election was veteran Right-winger Geert Wilders.

The anti-migrant nationalist is a fierce critic of Islam, and of the EU. A supporter of a Nexit referendum, Mr Wilders has also called for the Netherlands to quit the Paris climate change agreement.

The BBB were leading in the polls before Mr Rutte resigned, but lost ground to the controversial Mr Wilders.

Nonetheless, it won seven seats, a jump of six, in the Dutch parliament and is in the mix to be part of a future Wilders-led coalition government of Right-wing parties.

That success was even sweeter for the BBB because of the defeat handed to Frans Timmermans, who led an alliance of Left-wing and green parties in the election.

Mr Timmermans quit his job as the EU’s climate chief to fight the campaign but was beaten into a distant second place by Mr Wilders.

A tractor is decorated with effigies and bears the slogan 'Live free or die' during a protest on the A41 motorway near France's border with Switzerland - JEANNE ACCORSINI/SIPA/SHUTTERSTOCK

“The farmers’ actions, which gave birth to the BBB, and their success, has inspired other farmers’ organisations abroad,” said Andre Krouwel, who teaches political science at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

Social media and the dominance of the populist Right on those platforms had played a part, he added.

“The narrative of farmers has become connected to a more general story about decline of national symbols, of national landscapes, of national traditional ways of life [...] a kind of nostalgic nationalism,” he added.

This, he said, had combined with the cost of living crisis and the rising cost of food to transform once popular green policies into “bread and butter” economic policies.

“The reason why we see this enormous mobilisation and support for farmers is the economic vulnerability of people assuming these environmental policies will hit them in their wallets,” Mr Krouwel said.

He predicted the movement would continue to spread across Europe from its source in the Netherlands, which he said was “a Petri dish for political experiments” thanks to its low vote threshold, which encourages new parties.

Once the genie escaped from the Dutch political laboratory, there were swiftly copycat anti-nitrogen cut protests among farmers in neighbouring Flanders.

Macron fears rise of ‘gilets verts’

Those were dwarfed by demonstrations that have erupted in France, which have already left two dead. A car rammed into a famers’ roadblock on Tuesday, killing a woman and her teenage daughter and seriously injuring her husband.

Emmanuel Macron, the president, has ordered Gabriel Attal, 34, the country’s new prime minister, to focus on quelling a potential “jacquerie” (peasant’s revolt).

He fears the threat of a “gilets verts” movement, a revolt among farmers along the lines of the “gilets jaunes” rebellion that saw protests against fuel tax hikes around the country in 2018.

On Monday, a group of farmers blocked access to the Golfech nuclear power plant in the southwestern Tarn département. Farmers have also been blocking the A62 and A20 motorways in southwestern France for the past four days.

An explosion damaged a government building near Carcassonne related to the environmental transition ministry last weekend. Graffiti with the word CAV, a militant wing of wine unions notorious for violent action, was found inside.

The country’s second biggest union, CGT, has promised “spectacular action across France” while FNSEA, the biggest farmer’s union, also said it was mulling protests.

Against a backdrop of fears that the farming unions are being “overwhelmed by grassroots” anger, one minister cited by Le Parisien spoke of a “wind of panic” in the cabinet.

After this unprecedented week of protest action, Mr Attal on Friday announced a series of concessions to the farmers in hopes of ending their rebellion. Among them were an end to rising fuel costs and the simplification of regulations.

“We will put agriculture above everything else,” he said at a cattle farm in a mountain village near the border with Spain. “You wanted to send a message, and I’ve received it loud and clear.”

Farmers dump waste on the streets of Montpellier, in the south of France, on Friday - AVENTURIER PATRICK/ABACA/SHUTTERSTOCK

But the farmers were unmoved by the concessions, and on Saturday they vowed to continue protesting.

Farmers across Europe cite red tape, government tax on tractor fuel, cheap imports, water storage issues and price pressures from retailers among their grievances. They also complain of the over-zealous application of EU law and environmental regulations.

They all face the challenge of inflation – caused in part by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – and what some see as unfair competition from Ukrainian agricultural imports.

As elsewhere, their plight has become a political hot potato as the European Parliament elections loom. The hard-Right National Rally (RN) party is polling to come first ahead of Mr Macron’s Renaissance group.

Visiting a dairy farm in the Quercy in south-western France, Jordan Bardella, the RN party chief and European campaign director, said farmers were sick of the strictures imposed by “Macron’s Europe”, which he claimed wanted “the death of our agriculture”.
Italians feel ‘betrayed by Europe’

In Italy, another founder member of the EU, farmers and their tractors took to the streets on Monday.

They are angry about rising fuel costs, inflation, EU legislation and the low prices they say they receive for their produce.

They are also concerned about the threat posed by synthetic, lab-grown meat and food products, such as flour, made from insects, blaming Brussels for promoting the initiatives.

In Bologna, in the wealthy northern region of Emilia-Romagna, around 200 tractors blocked the streets. One tractor had a large sign attached to its front which read “Traditi dall’ Europa” – Betrayed by Europe.

There were also protests in Lazio, the region that encompasses Rome, as well as Abruzzo in the centre and Calabria in the south.

Many of the tractors flew Italian flags from their cabins. The Dutch farmers had flown the flag of the Netherlands upside down from their cabs.

One of the protest organisers, Danilo Calvani, president of an organisation called the Committee of Betrayed Farmers, said farmers were struggling to make ends meet.

Mr Calvani was one of the leaders of the Forconi, or the Pitchforks, a populist, anti-establishment movement that sprang up in Italy a decade ago before fizzling out. At its height, in 2003, the movement staged angry protests against politicians, the euro, the EU, austerity policies and high taxes.

He said the farmers’ protests are destined to grow and to spread across the whole country in a “national mobilisation”.
Spain’s climate change law in Vox sights

In Spain, the Union of Unions, which brings together the country’s farming associations, has announced fresh protests for Feb 21, with tractor columns expected in 15 citiesto demand the ditching of green policies

The climate-sceptic far-Right Vox, Spain’s third-largest party, has said it would repeal Spain’s climate change law, with its targets for net zero.

And Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the president of the Madrid region, has rebelled against energy-saving rules limiting the use of air-conditioning and shop window lighting.

Tipped to one day be leader of the centre-Right Partido Popular, Ms Ayuso has flirted with climate scepticism.

In 2022 she called the net zero agenda “a big scam [that is] impoverishing more and more citizens”.

German plans watered down

In Germany, the EU’s largest economy, thousands of tractors descended on Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate in January as part of nationwide protests that shut down motorways and city centres.

These demonstrations were triggered by Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s plan to cut certain tax breaks for farmers as well as their subsidies for polluting agricultural diesel.

Even after those plans were watered down, with the tax breaks restored and the phase-out of diesel subsidies to take place gradually over several years, farmers took to the streets anyway.

Piles of dung were dumped at the constituency offices of parties in Mr Scholz’s ruling coalition and some of the demonstrations were attended by members of far-Right extremist groups.

EU feels pressure in run-up to polls

In Brussels, there is already much discussion about what such widespread discontent could mean for the European Parliament elections.

The EU has set itself a goal of reaching net zero by 2050, a target championed by Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president.

But Mrs von der Leyen is already under pressure from her own centre-Right European People’s Party to water down green legislation.

She has already moved to weaken strict EU protections for wolves and to shelve animal welfare legislation over cost of living concerns, while the bloc’s nature restoration law was heavily amended by conservatives.

The latest polls predict anti-EU parties are set to win the European Parliament elections in nine of the member states – Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and Slovakia – and come second or third in another nine countries.

The hard-Right Identity and Democracy Group (ID), which includes Marine Le Pen’s RN and the Alternative for Germany party, could go from being the fifth to the third-largest bloc in the EU parliament this year, which experts warn could weaken support for net zero in the European Parliament.

In Brussels, Véronique Le Floc’h, the president of Coordination Rurale, the French farming group, said, “French farmers are united in their opposition to absurd, extreme and unworkable environmental policies dreamt up by the EU and zealously implemented by the Macron government.

“Those in power do not spare a thought for the impact of these policies on the livelihoods of farmers, the food security of the nation and the cost of living crisis facing ordinary people.”

Some farmers see their plight in terms of a battle with globalist forces seeking to force them off their land; a view zealously promoted by online conspiracy theorists.

“It is time for the entire population of Europe to stop this dictatorship so that we do not lose our freedoms. It starts with erasing agriculture, and then they will start restricting citizens’ freedoms,” added Bart Dickens, president of the Farmers Defence Force Belgium.

Fast green programme is ‘an easy target’

For political scientist Mr Krouwel, it’s clear the elections will be fought on the platform established by the tractor protests in the Netherlands and increasingly adopted by the mainstream Right.

“The elections will be very much about the pushback against the rather fast programme of green policies that the EU has,” he told The Telegraph.

“That’s an easy target for ‘nostalgic populists’ who see it as another way of destroying our culture and our traditions.”

“There is now a clear anti-elite, identity policy dimension to opposition to the European Green Deal,” said Susi Dennison, the senior director of the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank.

“It is likely to be weaponised by the Right to signal that pro-Europe, progressive politicians do not have the interests of everyday voters at heart.”

With additional reporting from James Badcock, Joe Barnes, and Nick Squires

Secret EU plan ‘to sabotage Hungarian economy’ revealed as anger mounts at Orbán


Lisa O'Carroll in Brussels
Mon, 29 January 2024 

Photograph: Denes Erdos/AP

Officials in Brussels have reportedly drawn up a secret plan to sabotage Hungary’s economy if Viktor Orbán decides this week to again block a €50bn support package for Ukraine.

The plan, reported by the Financial Times, reflects the fury mounting across European capitals at what one diplomat called the “policy of blackmail” being pursued by the Hungarian prime minister, who leads the bloc’s most pro-Russia state.

The FT said the strategy involved targeting Hungary’s economy, weakening its currency and reducing investor confidence.

Related: EU president to stay in post amid fears of Viktor Orbán getting role

Orbán blocked the €50bn in Ukraine funds in December, forcing an emergency leaders meeting to be scheduled on Thursday to revisit the matter.

According to the FT, the document declares that “in the case of no agreement in the February 1 [summit], other heads of state and government would publicly declare that in the light of the unconstructive behaviour of the Hungarian PM … they cannot imagine that [EU funds would be provided to Budapest]”.

Hungary’s economy is heavily reliant on the single market, with nearly all its exports going across the border to neighbouring countries. According to European Commission data, intra-EU trade accounts for 78% of Hungary’s exports (Germany 28%, Romania, Slovakia, Austria and Italy all 5%), while 3% goes to the US and 3% to the UK.

The EU has already tried to use funds as a tool to force Hungary into line on policies and the application of the rule of law, a basic requirement of membership of the bloc; €20bn of funds are frozen over concerns about LGBTQ+ rights and other issues.

János Bóka, Hungary’s EU minister, told the FT that his country “does not give in to pressure” and there was no connection between Ukraine and general access to EU funds. “Hungary has and will continue to participate constructively in the negotiations,” he said.

On Monday he wrote on X: “The document, drafted by Brussels bureaucrats only confirms what the Hungarian government has been saying for a long time: access to EU funds is used for political blackmailing by Brussels.”

An EU source said: “The reality is Hungary has not really been flexible on this. The member state level of frustration is increasing. It is higher than in December.”

On Friday it emerged that several member states were pushing for a triggering of article 7 of the treaty of the European Union to strip Hungary of voting rights if Orbán continues to block EU decisions.

Such is the concern about Budapest’s manoeuvres that the European Council president, Charles Michel, abandoned his plans to step down in July amid fears that Orbán could take the chair at summits until a new leader was found.

One diplomat warned that using article 7 was a last resort and should not be used despite the fury with Hungary.

Despite a frenzy of visits by officials and calls by EU leaders, Orbán is not relenting. The latest proposal from Budapest is to agree to the money for Ukraine but only on an annual basis.

Senior sources say EU leaders see this as handing Hungary an annual veto, which they are not prepared to do, particularly because it would leave Ukraine uncertain of funds again in January 2025 and each January after that until 2027, when the funding is due to be reviewed.