Agricultural tackles: Protesting farmers and the EU’s climate agenda

As agricultural protests grip countries across the European Union, farmers are set to be a force to contend with in this crucial election year. In France, tractors have paralysed the motorway system in recent weeks, with protesters also causing havoc in Paris by (among other things) depositing manure at the entrances of supermarkets to highlight the disparity between small farmers and big agribusiness. Even the more right-wing members of President Emmanuel Macron’s government have been careful to offer a sympathetic framing of the farmers’ grievances. A similar pattern is playing out in member states across the EU, from Poland and Germany to the Netherlands and now Czechia – with potentially devastating consequences for Europe’s climate agenda.

At the centre of the protests is the burden that climate action places on the farming community. The agricultural lobby has long expressed concerns about the implementation of key elements of the European Green Deal. One key battleground was the EU’s “Nature Restoration Law”, intended to protect and enhance biodiversity in Europe’s ecosystems, which faced fierce opposition from the agricultural sector before it was passed in summer 2023. What has changed now is the intensity of the anger and the simultaneous protests in so many parts of the EU – including on the doorstep of the European Council in Brussels. European leaders are already showing signs of nerves: when the European Commission released its communication on reducing net emissions by 90 per cent by 2040 this month, the messages on action needed from the agricultural sector were relatively muted. The “land, fuel and bioeconomy’’ section of the plan was buried on page 20 of the 27-page document.

Another grievance is against the EU itself: that is, European farmers’ perception that they cannot compete with farmers elsewhere because of “unequal terms” in the EU’s free trade deals. Macron leant into this narrative to direct farmers’ anger away from the French government as protests spread last month, zeroing in on the farmers’ perception that lower environmental and social standards were required of farmers in South America’s Mercosur bloc than in Europe. In response, Macron claimed that he had told Brussels not to sign a trade agreement with Mercosur that had been over 20 years in the making – much to the dismay of the European Commission and other EU capitals (notably, Berlin).

But grievances over competitiveness are by no means unique to France. In Poland, for example, farmers have blockaded the border with Ukraine to protest the impact of Ukrainian exports on grain prices. This is particularly noteworthy in an EU member state that has remained a staunch supporter of backing Ukraine for as long as it takes to resist the Russian invasion, and is also firmly behind the country’s accession to the EU.

Europe’s climate agenda thus seems to be in peril. And it is not just farmers who are concerned about the costs of the environmentally friendly agricultural and industrial practices. Voters in general remain fearful about climate change, but tend to prioritise a lower cost of living over the climate impact. EU governments, meanwhile, fear the consequences of not appeasing the agricultural lobby. Agriculture was only responsible for around 1.4 per cent of the EU’s GDP in 2022, but in many member states it has an outsize influence in politics. The German agriculture-environment rift, for example, will likely affect the positioning for roles in EU institutions after the European Parliament election in June.

European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, has indicated that she will run for a second term. During her first mandate, she placed the decarbonisation of EU economies and the implementation of the European Green Deal at the centre of her narrative of a geopolitical EU. But the mainstream of the European People’s Party (EPP) group to which von der Leyen belongs is now billing itself as the “farmers’ party”. In the 2023 vote on the nature restoration law, many EPP members voted against the bill – and they may try to face her down over the green agenda.

So, the farmers-climate conflict is likely to be a decisive factor in the nominations process for EU institutions this summer. And if, as a recent ECFR report projects, the upcoming European elections produce a much more right-leaning European Parliament, climate and environmental policy would be among the most affected areas. The next phase of the European Green Deal could therefore find itself with fewer champions in both the new European Commission and European Parliament, despite the EU being woefully behind on its decarbonisation targets.

But none of this is inevitable. The alternative to the EU abandoning its climate agenda in the face of the political challenge will take political courage, but there is a way forward.

Firstly, the agenda needs a financial pillar. The social offer must be up to the task of ensuring that the green transition is just, and that the burden is shared in a reasonable way between different parts of society and different parts of the EU. It is not easy to secure more funding through the European budget in the current political climate, and against other competing – but also vital – pressures such as supporting Ukraine and the costs of enlargement. The pie will need to grow. This would traditionally meet with resistance, especially in more frugal capitals – Berlin, for instance, and the Hague. But leaders even there could now view things differently, as farmers’ protests serve as a highly visible reminder of the cost of not increasing spending to tackle problems.

Secondly, leaders who back climate action need to wrestle back control of the competitiveness argument. In a world that must decarbonise, governments everywhere are formulating measures to ensure that their imports are low and then no carbon – to protect their own businesses and farmers as they themselves implement national targets. Europeans could kick the can down the road by not pushing their agricultural and industry stakeholders to face up to this reality now. But this will come at the cost of losing the early-mover advantage in the global market by developing green industry and agriculture. Besides, it is not good leadership to put off until tomorrow what needs to be done today.

An honest narrative, backed by financial support, could therefore be the best way for EU leaders to help agricultural protesters through their grief at the loss of a carbon-fuelled world. Anger and denial greeted the European Green Deal’s first phase of implementation. Now is the time for negotiation and reasoning to move through the depression phase and towards acceptance of the inevitable and urgent climate action ahead.