Greens pledge to cater to farmers, call for greater climate ambition

The European Green Party (EGP) has renewed its pledge to cater for farmers and agreed to try to bring forward the EU’s climate neutrality and fossil fuel phase-out targets at this weekend’s congress in Lyon in an attempt to fend off right-wing ‘attacks’ on the party and the Green Deal.

Words such as “courage”, “attack”, and “anger” – all of them common themes at the congress – set the tone for what will be a tough campaign to regain voters and defend the Green Deal against the soaring far-right, as the Greens are set for major losses after the EU elections in June, according to Euractiv’s latest polls.

The EGP has ultimately doubled its climate ambitions by calling the EU to reach climate neutrality by 2040 – 10 years before the current EU’s target – as well as the complete phase-out of fossil fuels by the same date in their electoral manifesto, approved during the congress.

All of it is set under a new so-called “Green and Social Deal”, with an enhanced focus on defence, security, and the EU’s external dimension – and, in response to the current political landscape, also on farmers and agriculture.

The manifesto slams all those who ‘tried to pull the breaks’, stressing that “we need to strengthen the areas where compromises have left gaps and loopholes and raise the level of ambition” while also adding a strong focus on social policy catering to the increasing social unrest due to the cost-of-living crisis.

The German Greens first tried to water down the targets by pushing the climate neutrality deadline to 2045 and slashing phase-out dates for fossil fuels, as Euractiv first reported. After negotiations, however, they backed down.

The Greens also enhanced their stakes on geopolitics by linking calls to switch to renewables, also in the framework of decreasing exterior dependency on fossil fuel providers.

“That the main reason for moving to renewables, because it gets you out of these unhealthy dependencies, and I think this is simply the reality of geopolitically very challenging times … to make our, our societies more crisis resilient and secure,” Austrian Environment, Climate and Energy Minister Leonore Gewessler told Euractiv.

The odd one out

While the vast majority of the text was agreed on compromise sessions, the Swedish Greens delegation submitted amendments to delete calls for a more federal Europe, an EU-wide wealth tax, arguing that taxation should stay at the national level and the legalisation of cannabis – which were rejected by an overwhelming majority.

The 55-page-long manifesto was ultimately passed with 98.7% votes in favour and five against, in what EGP co-chair Mélanie Vogel defended to Euractiv as “a way to show how credible, substantial, and encompassing our project is”, unlike other political families whose manifestos are less concrete due to a lack of agreement among national parties, she said.

“We have solutions to all the questions that the EU has to answer in the next five years,” Vogel added.

Greens “under attack”

The atmosphere in the congress was a reflection of what will be an uphill campaign battle against “attacks” by conservatives and far-right blaming the Green Deal – and the Greens – for increased bureaucratic burdens and the widespread farmers’ protests.

“We are attacked because we are in the centre of the debate now, the diagnosis and the solutions of the Greens are the debate of today,” EGP co-chair Mélanie Vogel told Euractiv.

The centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) is calling in their manifesto to revise Green Deal legislation, such as the combustion engine ban, while other right-wing and liberal forces are also calling for a green regulatory ‘pause.’

Conservative forces have also pointed to green policy as the malaise behind farmers’ protests across the continent, using the Green Deal as a “decoy” despite creating themselves the current failing agricultural model, MEP and lead candidate Bas Eickhout told Euractiv, while also affirming the Greens have always been on the side of farmers.

“The baseline behind it is that they have very many difficulties in making a decent living, they hardly get any profits out of everything they do, that’s not because of green policies,” he added, stressing that the current EU’s agricultural framework conceived by right-wing forces needs to be revised, as it is currently “a very capitalised, high input system” that benefits large-scale farming.

Instead, the Greens want to boost small producers, family-owned farms, and ecological farming.

“For decades, the farmers have been like chess pieces in the game of big agribusiness. So, yes, let’s support farmers in changing an agricultural policy that will actually deliver on their income,” Austrian Minister Gewessler told Euractiv.

Along those lines, co-president of the Greens in the European Parliament and freshly elected lead candidate Terry Reintke affirmed that her priority is to revamp the Common Agricultural Policy.

Eickhout: Greens and industry, best friends forever

The Greens argue they are the best suited to address the current agriculture crisis and defend that their “stable vision” is what Europe’s industry needs.

“The Greens are more than allies of the industry than this unpredictable behaviour of the far-right and the right,” Greens lead candidate Bas Eickhout said.

“For example, now the EPP [European People’s Party] wants to turn back the ban on the combustion engine. The car industry finally had a clear vision of where to go and where to invest. Now they get a mixed signal again,” Eickhout said while also lashing out against liberal French President Emmanuel Macron, who recently allowed the use of pesticides again in response to farmer’s protests.

Eickhout went on to say the Greens seek to deploy an investment programme to boost Europe’s sustainable industry as part of their new “Green and Social Deal”, a goal reflected in the manifesto, which, according to the manifesto, would rely on heavy taxes for “polluters, multinationals, and the ultra-rich”.

The von der Leyen question

While the Greens have been influential during the last EU legislature in setting up the Green Deal, their dwindling polls put their chances of being part of a Parliamentary majority at stake, especially at a time when the current EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s EPP is turning against key green policies.

“We will never go into a coalition where the far right is … and I think it’s about time that the EPP answers that question very clearly … do they want to go and look to their right, or do they want to look to their left? They can find us, and we are ready to negotiate,” Eickhout stressed.

Reintke also stressed that the Greens are ready to support von der Leyen for a second term if she pushes a strong green agenda, like in 2019.

“They can take votes from the ECR, and they can try to appease parts of the EPP and go against the Green Deal, move further to the right, but there is another option, and I think this is for us the important message to be sent,” she said, adding: “obviously there will be a very clear Green Deal focus because the Green Deal is under heavy attack.”

(Max Griera | Euractiv.com – Edited by Alice Taylor)