InterRegional for Strategic Analysis

Thousands of farmers across several European countries have recently taken their tractors to the streets to protest worsening living conditions. These protests came to a head with a blockade near Paris that began on 29 January 2024, while around 1200 tractors blockaded the streets of Brussels during an EU summit held on 1 February 2024. Farmers protesting across Europe carried placards with similar slogans, although there were also demands specific to certain regions.Key DriversThe farmers’ protests in Europe are driven by various factors, including the following:1. Gradual lifting of diesel subsidies: In Germany, Olaf Scholz’s government decided in December 2023 to cut subsidies for agricultural diesel as part of spending reductions in its 2024 budget. This resulted in German farmers organizing numerous demonstrations, one of which blocked Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action Robert Habek from disembarking from a ferry in early January 2024. The protests also shut down roads leading to ports including the Port of Hamburg.2. Unfair competition with Ukrainian products: Farmers in eastern European countries such as Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary, and Bulgaria previously complained about unjust competition with Ukrainian products, especially with regard to grain prices. After the EU suspended customs duties on grain imported from Ukraine in May 2022, increasing quantities of Ukrainian wheat and corn found their way to neighboring European markets.On 16 January 2024, the Romanian newspaper Krónika compared the European Commission waiving customs duties on Ukrainian products with a person who does not know how to swim volunteering to save a drowning person, thus dooming both. Farmers in neighboring countries therefore set out to tractor blockade border crossings with Ukraine. In Poland, these demonstrations led to the resignation of the minister of agriculture in April 2023. It is worth noting that in Poland and Romania, truck drivers and farmers have protested together against waiving customs duties on Ukrainian products.3. Opposition to government policies: In western Europe, the first farmers’ demonstrations began in the Netherlands in June 2022. The Netherlands is the second largest exporter of food products in the world after the US. A government plan issued by the liberal coalition that was in power at the time under Mark Rutte sought to cut back nitrogen emissions by reducing livestock, including cattle, by 30 percent. In response, thousands of Dutch farmers took to the streets, blocking highways and demonstrating in front of politicians’ houses.The way things have gone in the Netherlands is concerning to other European politicians. This is because the Netherlands demonstrated that agricultural populism was making inroads at the ballot box. The Farmer-Citizen Movement came in first in the Dutch provincial elections, taking 19 percent of the vote in March 2023, even though only 2.5 percent of the Dutch workforce is employed in the agricultural sector.4. Rejecting some tenets of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy: The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)’s new requirement that farmers leave at least 4 percent of agricultural land unused to receive funding has been one of the EU’s most controversial policies. Since mid-November 2023, France has experienced numerous protests in opposition to these policies. Spain’s three principal farming unions then announced that they were joining the European farmers’ protest movement and indicated that the CAP needed to be streamlined.5. Complaints about the EU Green Deal: This European Commission-backed initiative aims to involve EU member states in the environmental transition. One of the initiative’s goals is to eliminate the use of pesticides and develop organic agriculture. Although the Green Deal hopes to achieve major progress in combating climate change, it is currently is seen as a problem for the agricultural sector.6. Declining income of European farmers: Farmers in Europe feel that they have become invisible in the political sphere, especially with regard to discussions about the fallout of the war in Ukraine, which has eroded their income. This is particularly true for owners of small farms, who have been disproportionately affected by falling revenue as a result of the availability of cheap Ukrainian goods. Small farmers have also suffered from rising production costs due to inflation and the climbing costs of raw materials and energy. They have started to resort to vocal protest tactics because they feel marginalized. Some are extremely upset that in addition to being excluded from public discourse, they are seen to be consuming subsidies and polluting the environment.Political UnrestFarmers’ protests in Europe could have several key consequences, including the following:1. Embarrassing European environmental parties: Environmental parties that support the Brussels Code that farmers have criticized find themselves in a difficult position. For example, the headquarters of the Ecologists Party (EELV) in France was targeted by farmers who were protesting in the city of Toulouse. Many environmental organizations such as Greenpeace have also found themselves in an awkward spot given the lack of support from the farmers’ movement, even though the farmers are challenging environmental measures.On 2 February 2024, the Greek newspaper Kathimerini warned that right-wing extremist forces in Europe could capitalize on farmers’ anger. If right-wing parties win more seats in the upcoming European Parliament elections, the struggle against climate change will become more difficult. In that scenario, farmers will also face more natural disasters. Farmers have come to see the German environmental party, the Greens, as their enemy, and the party’s continued hold on power in Germany as a threat to their own future. This is because the party’s decisions do not take into account economic and social ramifications on the ground. German analysts conclude that by cutting diesel subsidies, the Greens have stirred up a wave of anger not unlike the one following a similar decision by Emmanuel Macron in 2018.2. Widening polarization in upcoming European elections: It seems that the farmers’ demands have come at a particularly crucial moment, because they could be exploited by far-right parties in Europe in the upcoming June 2024 European Parliament elections. The far right hopes to increase the number of seats it holds in the European Parliament. In France, Marine Le Pen announced on 20 January 2024 that ensuring French food sovereignty would be a key issue in the 9 June elections, since the EU was negotiating treaties under the table to import agricultural products.Many members of the Alternative for Germany party called for joining the protests alongside farmers against the Scholz government. Furthermore, on 23 January 2024, the newspaper Ouest-France indicated that Euroskeptic forces were trying to play on the idea of préférence nationale—that is, giving privileges to French-born citizens—as a solution to the agricultural crisis. The article contended that this was a misguided approach because Brexit-style policies had already been shown to be ineffective in the UK, where the agricultural sector continues to suffer from significant problems.3. Rethinking distribution of European aid: Many commentators in Brussels have called for rethinking the Common Agricultural Policy in order to resolve the current situation and ensure effective distribution of the 387 billion euros allocated for 2021-2027. Although this is an enormous amount of money that constitutes 30 percent of the EU’s Multiannual Financial Framework for that period, 80 percent of this sum will go to 20 percent of landowners, according to a 4 February 2024 report in the Spanish newspaper El País. The report suggested that the criteria for disbursing this aid was outdated.EU agricultural policy has become ineffective because it is limited to meeting the needs of large farmers’ unions at the expense of small farmers. Aid is distributed based on total hectares cultivated, so those with smaller farms (who make up a majority of farmers) lose out in the current policy. This policy must be revised in order to appease the farm lobby.4. Controversy over free trade negotiations with Mercosur: As protests escalated, French President Emmanuel Macron announced on 30 January 2024 that he would halt free trade negotiations between the European Commission and Mercosur. The latter bloc includes four South American countries: Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay. However, on 31 January, the French newspaper Le Figaro reported that Brussels had affirmed that talks were still ongoing, although that conditions necessary to reach an agreement had not yet been met. On 1 February 2024, the Economist article argued that European farmers’ opposition to free trade agreements for agricultural imports was further evidence that the region was clinging to an old state of affairs: "For what is Europe if not an attempt to hold on to things as they once were in a changing world? . . . Farmers are not the only Europeans who would like the world to stop so that they can get off (and retire early)." According to the article, Europe’s "35-hour workweeks and August off" seem to be part of why people are attracted to that model, even if "the way things are . . .[is] how they used to be."5. Growing potential for societal unrest: Many analysts do not see an end in sight for the current mobilization, due to the lack of unified demands on which a majority of farmers agree. For example, farmers have made contradictory demands to the extent that the French government will not ever be able to fully respond to them all. Some think that the movement will therefore continue for a comparative amount of time to that of the Yellow Vests movement.Although European governments have sought to placate farmers, some voices have emerged warning of sacrificing the prosperity of the silent majority for the interests of a vocal minority, in this case farmers. The agricultural sector makes up only 4.12 percent of the total European workforce. Furthermore, meeting farmers’ demands in one European country could mean immediately undermining the needs of their counterparts in other countries. This is why some have begun to warn European governments against being drawn into unconditional or permanent concessions to farmers’ demands. According to this argument, agriculture is ultimately not a charitable project of the state in which benefactors try to feed a hungry nation; rather, it is a private activity whose primary purpose is to make a profit.With regard to current societal divisions within Europe, a 25 January 2024 article published by the Lithuanian website LRT reported on a conversation that took place between a city dweller and a protesting farmer who had come from the countryside. The city dweller reportedly said to the farmer: "Any entrepreneur would envy you for the support, incentives and subsidies you receive." The farmer replied: "And I feed you."6. Fears of a diminishing agricultural sector in Europe: The February 2024 issue of the French monthly newspaper Le Monde diplomatique indicated that farming had fallen from 35 percent of the French workforce in 1946 to only 2 percent in 2024. This number is set to drop even further, since French youth have no incentive to pursue agriculture, which requires one to rise at six o’clock every morning for pay that is insufficient to support a livelihood.Le Monde diplomatique argued that the future of farmers was headed in one of three possible directions: disappearing as a result of the EU’s division of labor, continuing to hold on but at the cost of environmental and human destruction, or creating an agricultural system in Europe that ensures farmers’ autonomy.European ResponsesThe different methods that European countries have used to deal with the farmers’ protests can be summarized as follows:1. European Commission rolls back some agricultural policies: The European Commission has backtracked on the measure requiring farmers to leave 4 percent of their land unused for a year. Farmers will be able to access CAP subsidies even if they do not abide by this regulation. The European Commission is also considering amending measures linked to Ukrainian products, and has proposed adopting quick corrective steps in case of major disruptions to the market. It proposes to fix imports at the average quantities imported in 2022 and 2023, and to reimpose customs duties if imports rise above that level. On 31 January 2024, the French magazine L’Express reported that these steps would not be immediately implemented because they needed to be discussed with other countries and approved by members of the European Parliament.2. France takes steps to deescalate demonstrations: In an effort to calm the situation on the ground, French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal announced aid for farmers totaling 400 million euros, according to a 1 February 2024 article in the French newspaper Le Monde. The French government also announced that it would commit to delivering 2023 CAP aid by 15 March 2024.As a result of these measures, the two largest farmers’ organizations in France, FNSEA (Fédération nationale des syndicats d'exploitants agricoles) and Jeunes Agriculteurs said they would suspend protests. However, L’Express reported that news of French governmental aid was not well received by other farmers in Italy, Spain, and Germany, who were still demonstrating.3. Farmers asked to scale back demands: Although the Italian Minister of Agriculture Francesco Lollobrigida stated that farmers were suffering greatly and that their livelihood was at the mercy of a changing climate, other political forces have argued that the agricultural sector has been spoiled for decades with very generous European subsidies. These critics contend that farmers should not expect something beyond existing subsidies, according to a 31 January 2024 article in the Italian newspaper La Stampa.4. Attempts to blame Brussels: According to the online newspaper Der Nordschleswiger, Danish politicians are trying to avoid responsibility and act as if Brussels alone had devised policies that frustrated farmers. The paper claimed that Danish politicians were trying to show they were doing everything possible to mitigate the political fallout for Danish agriculture. It concluded that Danish politicians were acting hypocritically because they had actually been Brussel’s partner on all of these decisions.5. Germany adopts gradual transition policies: Due to concerns about preserving the governmental coalition, Germany prioritized austerity in its 2024 budget and cut social spending as much as possible. For the Greens, the theory was that 3 billion euros would be freed up by reducing aid for polluting sectors, especially agricultural diesel. In response to farmers’ anger over this move, the German government decided to gradually cut back tax advantages for farmers through 2026, rather than eliminating it all at once this year.In conclusion, it seems that solving the European farmers’ crisis could take two potential directions at once. The first path forward depends on the EU, which must reformulate an effective agricultural policy that addresses current challenges and unequal competition. The second depends on EU member states, which must work to restore balance between forces at play in the agricultural sector in order to better represent the interests of small farmers.

Why Farmers’ Protests are Expanding in Europe