EU Gives Final Approval to Revised Farming Policies After Months of Protests

European Union flags are displayed at the European Council headquarters in Brussels on Nov. 29, 2019. Kenzo Triboillard/AFP via Getty Images

The European Union (EU) on May 13 adopted revisions to its agricultural rules to address concerns raised by farmers during mass protests across Europe in recent months.

The Council of the European Union, one of the two EU legislative bodies, adopted the changes to its strategic plans, financing, and monitoring regulations of the EU’s common agricultural policy (CAP), according to a May 13 statement.

The policy was updated to simplify the rules and reduce administrative burdens on the bloc’s framers, according to the council. The majority of the council, which comprises 27 representatives—one from each EU member state at the ministerial level, grouped by policy area—voted in favor of the revisions, with only Germany abstaining.

The amendments were proposed in March by the EU Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, in response to farmers’ protests across Europe. The protests were against the restrictions imposed by the EU’s Green Deal plan, which includes climate-related policies as well as measures to address unfair competition within the EU market, particularly regarding products from Ukraine.

The European Green Deal is the European Union’s climate-action agenda to fight what it considers “an existential threat to Europe and the world,” according to a policy statement by the European Commission.

“The European Commission has adopted a set of proposals to make the EU’s climate, energy, transport, and taxation policies fit for reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 percent by 2030, compared to 1990 levels,” with the ultimate goal of “no net emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050,” the commission said in the statement.

According to the European Commission, the EU’s agricultural policy is closely tied to climate-related efforts. It aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from farming and capture and store carbon dioxide from the air.

These strict environmental regulations increase farmers’ costs of raising crops, making agricultural products produced in the EU less competitive than agri-food products from outside the EU.

For example, Ukrainian agricultural production does not have to meet the high standards of the EU, allowing Ukrainian agri-food goods to be sold at lower prices in the EU market. The situation was exacerbated when, in order to help Ukraine after Russia invaded it, the EU waived duties on Ukrainian food imports, which affected EU farmers, especially in countries bordering Ukraine, such as Poland.

The European Parliament approved the revisions to the EU’s common agricultural policy in late April.

Revisions to EU Agricultural Policy

The newly adopted revisions will amend the CAP for the years 2017–2023, and the new amended CAP “applies in full from January 2023,” according to the council.

Under the new law, smaller farms under 10 hectares will be exempt from controls and penalties for noncompliance with some EU’s farming rules, according to a statement.

These exemptions will apply to 65 percent of farmers who receive EU subsidies but will account for only 10 percent of EU land. This will reduce “the administrative burden for many,” while allowing the EU to maintain its climate-related and environmental goals, the council said.

EU member states will also have more leeway when applying the requirement to keep the ratio of permanent grassland to agricultural area above 5 percent, according to the statement.

The countries will also have more flexibility to grant their farmers exemptions from compliance with some EU standards in cases of extreme weather, according to the statement.

Farm machinery is used to harvest maize plants near Jessen, Germany, on Aug. 24, 2022. Jens Schlueter/Getty Images

The environmental requirements that farmers must satisfy to receive EU subsidies have also been weakened. For example, the requirement to keep 4 percent of the farm fallow to ensure biodiversity will no longer be a condition for farmers to receive subsidies under the revised law.

The revised regulations will allow farmers to diversify crops instead of employing crop rotation practices.

EU countries can also exempt their farmers from some farming regulations if they face difficulties applying them or in cases of extreme weather.

Farmers’ Protests

Protests by European farmers began in the Netherlands in 2019, when more than 2,000 Dutch tractors blocked highways and roads in response to an announcement that livestock farms would have to be bought out and shut down to reduce nitrogen emissions.

Earlier this year, farmers’ protests erupted across Europe. Farmers in Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, the Netherlands, and Spain staged demonstrations and protests against the constraints placed on them by the EU’s climate-related policies and measures related to addressing rising costs and unfair competition from non-EU countries.

The EU’s rule that obligated farmers to keep 4 percent of their arable land fallow or unproductive—now relaxed by the amendments—particularly impacted small-scale farmers.

Polish farmers also have been vocal about the impact of cheap food imports from neighboring Ukraine.

The farmers’ protests across Europe have subsided, but Polish farmers continue to demonstrate against the EU Green Deal.

Trade union 'Solidarnosc' and Polish farmers protest against the EU Green Deal in Warsaw, Poland, on May 10, 2024. Reuters/Kuba Stezycki

The Polish farmers’ trade union “Solidarity” organized a mass protest on May 10 in Poland’s capital, Warsaw, against the EU Green Deal. According to a statement from the group, the deal has caused the destruction of Polish agriculture, rising energy costs, a huge fuel tax, a ban on gas-powered cars, high prices in stores, and huge transportation costs.

Thousands participated, joined by representatives of other branches of the Solidarity trade union, such as miners and workers from the automotive sector.

In a sea of red-and-white Polish flags and Solidarity banners, protesters carried signs with slogans such as “Down with the Green Deal” and ”Green Poison.” Some protesting farmers gave away apples.

“That’s why we are here, because what Brussels is offering us, the Green Deal is not a green deal, it is a red deal,” Wieslaw Czerwinski, a retired farmer from Grojec, Poland, who was giving away apples, told Reuters.

Polish farmers protest as they launch a hunger strike in parliament over the EU's Green Deal, in Warsaw, Poland, on May 13, 2024. Reuters/Kacper Pempel

On May 9, a group of as many as 14 Polish farmers entered the Polish parliament. By May 10, five who remained went on a hunger strike, saying that they would not eat until they secured a meeting with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

“We don’t want to drive tractors on the streets and block ordinary, normal people whose lives we actually make difficult. But we have no other way to protest against the fact that in a year or two, there will be no family farmers in Poland,” farmer Jaroslaw Zaremba, 37, said while on a hunger strike.

Another farmer on hunger strike, Hubert Kraft, 54, said: “I’m in debt. I thought that the price would be right and I would sell the goods with some minimal profit. Right now, I had to go into debt to plant new crops. Firstly, there is no prospect of profit; secondly, emptying my warehouses is not that easy because no people are willing to buy our grain. Because grain arrives from abroad.”

Green Lawmakers in Opposition

The Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance (Greens/EFA) in the European Parliament opposed the weakening of the environmental rules for farmers.

The Greens/EFA group had made “concrete proposals to improve farmers’ revenues [through] a fairer redistribution of CAP subsidies towards small & medium farms, a guarantee that prices paid to farmers reflect the evolution of production costs and better protection against unfair imports from third countries,” it said in a statement that the group released after the legislation was passed by the parliament.

“With this vote, the Parliament is making a mistake, with serious consequences for the survival of farmers and our food security,” Bas Eickhout, a member of the European Parliament and vice president of the Greens/EFA group, said in the statement.

The changes to the EU’s agricultural policy removed or weakened “good farming practice standards that enable farmers to adapt to climate change and reduce dependencies on costly pesticides, fertilizer, and feed,” he said.

Mr. Eickhout asserted that the revisions to the agricultural policy would favor “agribusiness, which will continue to make massive profits at the expense of farmers, consumers, and the environment.”

More than 140 nongovernmental organizations, including Greenpeace, published an open letter criticizing the EU for the relaxation of environmental rules in “an opportunistic attempt to gather a few more votes in the upcoming elections,” referring to the EU parliamentary election in June.

“The European Environment Agency has warned that the continent is woefully underprepared for the impacts of a changing climate. Natural ecosystems that protect us from the worst of extreme weather, drought, heatwaves, and floods are disappearing when we should be restoring them,” the letter reads.

Farmers’ Lobby Group Expresses Support

Europe’s largest farmers’ association, Copa-Cogeca, expressed its support for the revisions to the agricultural policy after the parliament approved them.

“The adoption ... is seen as a positive signal to the urgency of addressing the concerns that farmers have expressed during the past few months when it comes to the administrative burden associated with the implementation of the CAP and to the need for immediate applicable solutions,” the group said in a statement.

It urged EU countries to apply the revised rules and enact or revise their national legislations to implement the revised EU policy so the changes can be applied at the farm level this year.

The organization also called on the EU Commission to further simplify the regulations.

Reuters and Adam Morrow contributed to this report.