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Photo: Jens Büttner / dpa
Climate protection is trendy, people in Brussels know that.
She wants to bring the economy in harmony with the planet, promised EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Your "Green Deal" is something like Europe's moon landing.
If the EU wants to be climate neutral by 2050, it really needs bold reforms, especially in agriculture, which is a major contributor to the EU's greenhouse gas emissions.
But this reform, it is clear, will not take place.
The really big words are followed by measly deeds.
The agriculture ministers spent two days this week negotiating agricultural policy for the next seven years.
The group was chaired by Agriculture Minister Julia Klöckner, since Germany holds the EU Council Presidency.
The CDU politician then raved about a "system change".
That was another nice word, a big announcement.
The word "system failure" would have been better.
387 billion euros in subsidies are to flow into agriculture over the next seven years.
That is almost 40 percent of the entire EU budget.
But the majority should not be awarded on the basis of need or environmental friendliness in the future - but only according to the area of the yard.
This particularly benefits large farms and, particularly bizarre, billionaires who work as farmers on the side.
The glasses entrepreneur and organic farmer Günther Fielmann, for example, one of the richest Germans, received more than 630,000 euros from EU agricultural pots last year.
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