Now also in Brussels a political factor of importance: the angry farmer. Or in any case: the threat thereof, in response to planned greening measures. In the run-up to the EU elections next year, the contrast between ‘agriculture versus nature’ also appears to be an important political theme at European level. And it is obvious that people also look at the Netherlands with a slanted eye.
“Look at what is happening in the Netherlands!” cried the Czech Eurocritical MEP Veronika Vrecionová on Wednesday morning during a debate in the European Parliament about ‘the role of the farmer in the green transition’. Countless mainly conservative MEPs sketched a jet-black picture of agriculture in Europe, where farmers would be massively driven out by a ‘green diktat’. “The peasants’ war started in the Netherlands,” said Croatian MEP Mislav Kolakušić. “But they don’t give up, neither do those in Croatia and the rest of Europe!”
It is nothing new that the voice of concerned farmers and the agri sector is being heard in Brussels. But the fact that the contrast between greening and agriculture is now becoming so politicized is striking and means bad news for the plans of European Commissioner Frans Timmermans (Climate) to improve biodiversity in Europe. Especially as opposition to the green proposals is starting to become part of the election campaigns.
Farmer’s deal
With a manifesto for a ‘European Farmer Deal’, the European Christian Democratic party, which also includes the CDA, turned against two important bills from the ‘Green Deal’ last week. On the one hand, a proposal that aims to reduce the use of chemical pesticides in agriculture by half by 2030, and on the other hand, a proposal that obliges Member States to do much more to restore nature areas. According to this European People’s Party (EPP), both laws should not be amended, but immediately removed from the table.
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Particularly when opposing the latter proposal, the party implicitly refers to the Netherlands, when it states that ‘in too many regions or member states (…) the existing nature legislation has led to a bureaucratic nightmare (…) which has affected the economic viability of the countryside (… ) are endangered”. According to the party, the European Commission should first help to break this ‘impasse’ before coming up with new nature proposals.
The two contested proposals can be seen as the skeleton of the European Biodiversity Strategy, an action plan designed to halt the dramatic deterioration of nature and loss of species. The laws must also contribute to achieving global agreements on biodiversity that were made in Montreal last December, in which Europe played a pioneering role.
With the manifesto, the EPP clearly ogles the peasant voice, with passages about “the importance of vitality of rural communities” and how the party wants to remain “the defender of Europe’s farmers and our rural communities”. It is not difficult to see how this fits in seamlessly with the language of the Dutch BoerBurger Movement. That party is still looking for a home if it enters the European Parliament next year and affiliation with the Christian Democrats, who are often slightly more conservative in Europe than the Dutch CDA, is substantively obvious. But BBB said earlier that it has not yet decided and whether the CDA likes to be together in one party is the big question.
Pesticide Act
The Christian Democrats are anything but alone in opposing both the Nature Restoration Act and the Pesticides Act. MEPs on the right of the party are even more critical, but also within the liberal group, which includes the VVD and D66, there is strong criticism of the proposal. For example, VVD MEP Jan Huitema is extremely critical of both laws. Whether there will be enough support in the EP is uncertain. A variety of member states, including the Netherlands, have also openly opposed it, which makes it even more uncertain what will remain of the law in the negotiations.
Will von der Leyen continue to publicly defend her green proposals, now that her own Christian Democratic party is also opposing them so strongly?
It has been expected for some time that biodiversity and greening agriculture would become the most complicated part of the ‘Green Deal’ – Timmermans also predicted this earlier. But the war in Ukraine has further sharpened the debate about the future of agriculture. Critics of major changes are now even more emphatic about the importance of food security and the risks they believe tampering with the sector would entail.
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Timmermans defends the proposals with increasing vehemence. During a speech in Germany last week, he lashed out at those who say that “farmers are heroes, that feeding the world is on their shoulders and that the Green Deal stands in their way. But how do they remain heroes when the soil is dead and there are crop failures due to drought?” Commission impact assessments indicate that the risks of continuing on the current path are greatest for the agricultural sector due to climate change and loss of biodiversity.
In Brussels, people are now mainly looking at Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who has been a fervent advocate of the ‘Green Deal’ for the past three and a half years. Will she continue to publicly defend her green proposals, now that her own Christian Democratic party is also opposing them so strongly? At the same time, rumors about Von der Leyen’s plans for the future are buzzing. Both the Christian Democrats and home country Germany have already hinted that they would like her to continue as chairman. Does Von der Leyen dare to clash with her own party in that context?