Amid growing farmers’ protests across the EU, the French EU Greens chief on Tuesday (23 January) called for a new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) that temporarily insures farmers’ pay and limitations on free trade deals that could undermine EU farmers’ competitiveness.
“The problem is not the environment, it is the social model in which [farmers] have been locked up,” Green EU lawmaker Marie Toussaint, who is the party’s lead candidate in France at the European elections, told public broadcaster franceinfo on Tuesday (23 January).
Farmers’ protests have grown steadily over the past two weeks, both in France and across the EU, denouncing low wages, rising production costs, and a heavy load of bureaucracy.
For the increase in red tape, farmers and their representatives blame the EU’s Green Deal, and its ‘Farm to fork’ flagship initiative, which in 2020 launched targets such as a 50% reduction in the use of pesticides and 25% of organic agricultural land by 2030.
Rolling out Green Deal standards has gone too quickly, Christiane Lambert, EU’s largest farmers’ union COPA chief, deplored. “There is exasperation among farmers that the obligations that are being imposed on them do not correspond to their realities,” she told Euractiv France with AFP (in French).
The target of the protest is wrong, Toussaint said, supporting an alternative solution: “First thing we must do is cancel [farmers’] debts, go back to square one”.
Official 2020 French data shows average debt levels for farms stand at €201,000, nearing €450,000 for pig breeding, and €370,000 for livestock.
She also called for a “transitionary” Common Agricultural Policy, during which “we give farmers a three-year [pay] guarantee, a time during which they can change models” out of intensive production and into more sustainable farming options.
She supports a revamp of the CAP to give more space to support the growth of more environmentally-friendly farms, “with a guaranteed minimum wage if need be” up to 2027, when CAP budgets must be reviewed.
“The Right and the Macronists pose as great defenders of defenders of farmers when in fact they support free trade agreements and are unable to regulate agricultural markets to ensure that farmers are fairly remuneration for their work,” Green EU lawmaker Benoit Biteau warned in a press release.
“The FNSEA [France’s largest farmers trade union] wants an end to agro-ecological transition, but what we actually need is to put new resources on the table to protect farmers, who are on the front line of climate change,” he added.
Farmers “need stability and protection, and that’s what [the Greens] stand for.”
“Unfair competition”
In the third part of her “emergency measures”, Toussaint called for an end to trade deals: “Governments continue to agree free-trade deals that impoverish farmers.”
The latest agreement to date, struck with New Zealand back in November, provides for a phased-in slashing of duties on New Zealand imports of lamb, beef, wine and fruit such as kiwifruit, while European exports, including machinery and vehicles as well as chocolate, wine and biscuits, would likewise benefit.
Both French and EU Greens are historically opposed to such agreements, without some form of “green protectionism” clause. In practice, this would mean imposing European-like standards on animal welfare, health or labour law on countries looking to export to the EU.
France’s beef and dairy sectors had voiced wariness at the time about New Zealand products coming from land using pesticides or herbicides banned in the EU.
This creates “unfair competition”, Green EU MEP David Cormand told franceinfo, blaming the French government for being “one of the member states that most vocally defend the signing of trade agreements”.
A controversial large-scale trade deal between the EU and Mercosur – bringing together Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay – is still on the books, though stuck for months in negotiations’ stalemate.
EU 'has given too much to the market', French Greens top candidate says
“An ill wind is blowing against ecology. It is in these conditions that we are approaching the European elections”, warns Marie Toussaint, MEP and head of the list of the French Greens (Europe Écologie – Les Verts, EELV) for the June 2024 elections, in an interview with Euractiv France.
[edited by Angelo Di Mambro/Nathalie Weatherald]
Read more with Euractiv
French farmers’ unions give PM one month to take action at EU levelRepresentatives of the French Farmers’ Union have urged new Prime Minister Gabriel Attal to get things moving in Brussels ahead of next month’s International Agricultural Show as the country grapples with growing farmer protests.
Source: euractiv.com
