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Frosted glass in front of cows in the pasture: a full EU budget for advertising
Photo: via www.imago-images.de / imago images / MiS
At the end of 2019, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a “Green Deal” for Europe.
Environmentalists are calling for reforms, especially in the agricultural sector - and see great potential here in the area of public relations as well.
Greenpeace criticizes the EU Commission for investing too much money in advertising for meat and dairy products.
More than 250 million euros and thus around a third of the advertising budget for agricultural products flowed into such public relations between 2016 and 2020, said the environmental organization.
This is "unacceptable".
Comparable campaigns for fruit, vegetables or more plant-based nutrition accounted for almost 20 percent of this expenditure in the same period.
Only three percent of the budget was spent on promoting organic products.
The background to the criticism is that conventionally produced meat and dairy products in particular are considered to be particularly harmful to the climate.
The EU wants to counteract this with an agricultural reform.
So far, EU funding has mainly been based on the size of the area that a farmer cultivates.
In future, a higher proportion of direct payments to farmers is to be linked to environmental requirements.
According to the statistics agency Eurostat, 8.5 percent of the utilized agricultural area was used for organic farming in 2019.
The EU Commission wants a quarter of the agricultural area in the EU to be used for organic farming by 2030.
The overall goal of the “Green Deal” is for Europe to become climate neutral by 2050.
mmq / dpa
