Brussels wants to reduce pollution from pig and poultry farms. The agricultural sectors concerned, particularly French, have been arguing for several years against this measure.
In France, in the wake of the peasant mobilization of recent weeks, they demanded that the executive take their request to Brussels for relief from the administrative and financial straitjacket. They thus underlined that the arrangements necessary to comply with such standards would be too costly, encouraging affected breeders to leave the profession. A new threat as some 20,000 French farmers retire each year, while only 14,000 take up the torch.