Correspondent in Brussels
With less than five months to go before the European elections and as far-right parties rise in the polls, a nightmare scenario is looming for Emmanuel Macron and, more broadly, for many EU leaders.
Peasant anger is spreading across Europe.
The demonstrations began last year in the east of the continent, in Poland and Romania in particular.
They now concern around ten countries in total, including France where the movement is not weakening.
Leaders whose countries are currently spared are worried.
Those who have just been caught up - Greece, Spain, Belgium and even Italy - want to put out the fire as quickly as possible.
This is the case of the Greek Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
“
I don’t want to see what’s happening here in France
,” he told journalists from Skai radio before announcing exceptional aid for farmers who were victims of the September floods.
Brussels announced on Tuesday a “partial” exemption from the provisions included in the common agricultural policy (CAP).
Under pressure from member states, Brussels is trying to calm the anger.
A delicate exercise as the demands are numerous.
As
Le Figaro
indicated on Monday, the executive is letting go of the fallows.
And put back the scarecrow of “4%”, a rule aimed at protecting biodiversity, but synonymous with decline for the agricultural world.
Brussels thus announced on Tuesday a “partial” exemption from the provisions included in the common agricultural policy (CAP).
The obligation to set aside 4% of arable land or non-productive areas (groves, hedges, etc.) is suspended for 2024, provided that farmers reserve at least 7% of the surface area of their farm for intermediate crops or nitrogen fixers.
Concerning imports of agricultural products from Ukraine, another reason for the anger, the exemption from customs duties put in place in mid-2022 has been extended by one year, from June 2024 to June 2025. But a “brake on 'emergency' is introduced for the most sensitive products flooding the EU (poultry, eggs and sugar), with customs duties at stake if imports exceed the average levels for 2022 and 2023. As for other products Ukrainians - including cereals -, safeguard measures will be implemented by Brussels if the markets of one or more Member States are disrupted by a sharp increase in imports.
Read also: Anger of farmers: Emmanuel Macron's Swedish counter-programming defeated by current events
Meeting between Macron and von der Leyen this Thursday
The message posted on protect Union markets.
“Today we are renewing the special trade measures, which are essential to maintaining the Ukrainian and Moldovan economies.
At the same time, we are proposing safeguards to cushion the impact of these measures on EU farmers.”
The first two responses from Brussels, to which member states and the European Parliament must also give the green light, were requests from Emmanuel Macron.
All eyes will still be on Brussels this Thursday.
The president is due to meet “VDL” at 9 a.m. for a one-hour exchange, on the sidelines of the summit of the Twenty-Seven, largely devoted to support for Ukraine.
The agricultural subject is not formally on the agenda of this meeting, which the Hungarian Viktor Orban threatens to torpedo, but it will be discussed in the bilateral discussions, or even in the discussions at Twenty-Seven if a leader puts the subject on the table.
Also read: Mercosur, Chile, Canada… These trade agreements that scare French farmers
Mercosur in the viewfinder
For now, the first decisions from Brussels have been very well received by the leaders
. “An important first step
,” reacted Alexander De Croo on X as the movement gains momentum in his country, Belgium.
The port of Zeebrugge - the nerve center for food imports and exports to and from the UK, Ireland and Scandinavia - is blocked.
By writing this message, the Belgian Prime Minister also admits that the EU must go much further.
Trade agreements are also in the sights, even if the Member States are far from being aligned on the subject and if Germany and Spain are resisting Mercosur, which has been in negotiation for twenty years.
Among other subjects, the maquis of administrative procedures which depends partly on Brussels and partly on the Member States.
According to a European diplomat, all these subjects must be framed, if only because the Commission will present its CAP proposal for the period 2028-2032 next year.
There is a difference between what has really been done and the perception of the agricultural sector
A source from the European Union
At the same time, the question of the “green deal” and its implementation also arises.
Without calling into question the climate emergency, many leaders had sounded the alarm well before the peasant demonstrations.
Among them, the leaders of Eastern Europe, Emmanuel Macron, Alexander De Croo and Giorgia Meloni, who had also made her first trip as President of the Italian Council to a farm.
Last May, no fewer than eight European leaders who were members of the EPP also called for “
a regulatory pause
”.
Sweden is also “
more pragmatic
”, as one diplomat put it.
So much so that the legislative version of the “green pact” has largely spared the agricultural sector, either because the texts were rejected in the European Parliament (pesticides), or because they were weakened during the negotiations (the restoration of nature) or because the Commission, feeling the tide turning, preferred not to put new proposals on the table (animal welfare).
“
There is a difference between what has really been done and the perception of the agricultural sector
,” summarizes an EU source.
A text could soon pay the price for the peasant revolt: that which concerns industrial emissions, part of which concerns agriculture.
After the compromise reached at the end of December between the European Parliament and the Council (the Member States), a solemn vote is planned for March in Strasbourg.
Before that, on February 6, the Commission will present the objective of reducing CO emissions for 2040. Other legislative texts will be included.