The European campaign explodes and the consequences could be serious for Europe

He European campaignfed with some 400,000 million euros every seven years in subsidies financed by the European Union, I’ve never been so angry like in the last few months.

Inflation in the period 2022-2023 and what agricultural producers consider an excess of environmental regulationshe’s waking up protests across much of the block.

Its effect is now greater because could alter the outcome of the European elections, which will be held on June 9th. The camp was traditionally conservative and its vote went mainly to the parties of the traditional conservative family, the Christian Democrats. Things have changed. The far right, clinging to his climate crisis denialismseen in the field a fishing area to fish for votes from their enemy, the traditional right.

The far right is trying to convince Europeans who depend on the countryside to make a living this way the European Union is your enemythat their policies actually aim, despite this massive aid which prevents what we eat in Europe from being essentially imported, to put an end to food production in the Old Continent.

Mixing those fears and with the help of lies that spread especially on social networks, the ultra parties launch themselves to encourage these protests. A conference organized by a Hungarian centre, financed by the government of ultranationalist Viktor Orban, entitled “Fight against the European Union’s war on agriculture”.

Protest movements have been recorded in the countryside for months. French, German, Belgian, Luxembourgish, Hungarian They block the roads and stop production. There are common problems, such as the increase in prices of production factors or the request that there be some guaranteed minimum prices for the sale of their products.

A new problem arose last year when the European Union agreed remove tariffs on Ukrainian productswhich they ate entire slices of the European market because they are much cheaper.

EU agriculture ministers are trying to find answers.

Terror of the ecological transition

This Tuesday, meeting in Brussels, they discussed for hours what to do. The European Commission will launch this Thursday a “strategic dialogue” with the sector, which above all seeks to calm, slow down, the debates on the ecological transition, which causes panic in the countryside. So that it doesn’t happen like in Italy, Sweden and the Netherlands, where there is the far right he won the elections by stoking the fear of the population of the field.

The Spanish Minister of Agriculture, Luis Planas, summed up the situation perfectly: “The far right tries to use farmers as political leverage. We must defend them without political manipulation. This dialogue should have started when the European Green Deal proposals were presented, but it is never too late if it is done well, because the voice of farmers must be heard.”

The risk is also that of slowing down the ecological transition.

The big vote loser of this rise of the far right is the European People’s Party, the traditional conservative family. So before you continue losing votes to your right They decided to join the far right and present itself as the farmers’ party, the one that wants to stop the fight against the climate crisis. Until giving backtrack on deals that seemed closedsuch as the use of pesticides, which must be reduced.

There are no major changes in the current regulations affecting the countryside as there are for other economic sectors, in particular transport or electricity production, but everyone hopes they will come.

Several governments impose obligations on the European Commission on what should emerge from this dialogue. The main thing would be ensure sufficient income for farmers and support themwith funds, in the ecological transition.

Governments do not have a magic wand and at Tuesday’s meeting several agriculture ministers, according to sources close to the meeting, recognized that the unrest in the countryside is profound and it doesn’t just have to do with pricing issues.

They talk about it widespread discontent because they believe that this ecological transition is urban, that they are dictated and are not consulted and who are humiliated. This is where the far right comes in, presenting itself as the defender of small farmers against the Brussels elite.