From Romania to France, via Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Spain, Europe is crossed by a vast farmer protest movement. A grumble of various origins, but indicative of generalized unease.
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Highway blockages, piles of manure left in front of public institution buildings, tractor demonstrations in city centers…
In Romania and Polandfarmers denounce unfair competition from Ukrainian products arriving via the green corridor set up after the Russian invasion to allow cereals to leave the country.
In Germany, it was the removal of a subsidy on agricultural diesel that ignited the situation. But the protesters who blocked Berlin this week with their tractors are also demanding the relaxation of environmental standards which they consider impossible to follow.
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Same thing in France, where farmers were already showing their anger in the fall by turning over the signs at the entrance to city centers, symbol of a world which, in their eyes, is “walking on its head”. Since Thursday evening January 18, the A64 motorway – Toulouse-Bayonne – in the southwest has been blocked by farmers and politicians are busy on the ground. A new dam is announced in Ariège.
Everyone also fears the consequences of Green New Deal supposed to mark the start of a true ecological transition in Europe. Agriculture represents 12% of the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions, but 30% of the European budget. This movement is indicative of a profession which knows itself to be essential, but which is afraid of the future, afraid of efforts that we will ask of it when many farms are already struggling to survive.
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In Brussels and in European capitals, we are watching with concern this movement that the extreme right is trying to recover six months before the elections to the European Parliament.