(Finance) – The European Commission will present on Thursday a proposal for a new derogation from the EU rules aimed at farmers on the minimum quotas of land to be kept fallow in order to have access to aid from the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). This was announced by a spokesperson for the EU executive. “Based on the perceived threat to food security” due to the war in Ukraine, the spokesperson recalls, Brussels had already introduced a derogation from the requirements (in jargon, BCAA 8) on arable land to be left fallow. Now, with farmer protests mounting across Europe, a new exemption is under consideration.
Meanwhile, Iberian farmers joined from Spain, who announced their desire to join the European protest movement, calling for mobilization across the country. The agricultural organizations Asaja, Coag and Upa have announced a protest calendar to ask for a “change in European policies and a shock plan of government interventions in favor of the territories against the crisis that the sector is experiencing”. This was reported by the Efe agency, underlining that the “protests are in line with those of other European farmers”.
The port authority, relaunched by the media, makes it known that Belgian farmers intend to block access roads to the port for 36 hours container in Zeebrugge, on the North Sea. Farmers’ protests in Belgium have continued for days now. The situation on the roads remains complicated throughout the country. In the morning the first tractors reached the European Parliament area in Brussels and the Walloon city of Namur was stormed by around 300 vehicles. Yesterday the Federation of Young Belgian Farmers (FJA) threatened a total blockade of the capital between tomorrow and Thursday, coinciding with the EU summit.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, declared today that it would be “simplistic to blame everything on Europe” to explain the difficulties of French farmers who denounce some legal obligations of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). During his state visit to Sweden yesterday, Macron underlined his opposition to the trade agreement being negotiated between the European Union and Mercosur, due to “rules that are not homogeneous with ours”, and asked “clear measures” for imports of poultry and grains from Ukraine.
The stretch Melegnanese of Binasca, at the Autostrada del Sole toll booth, this afternoon, he saw 250 tractors, led by the national coordination of ‘Agrarian Redemption’ to protest against European Union policies in the sector, slow down traffic.
Farmers protest against Europe also in Grosseto where approx 50 tractors and several heavy vehicles find themselves stuck on one side of the old Aurelia, now provincial road 154, while trying to reach the capital from the south of the Maremma.
(Photo: Joao Marcelo on Unsplash)