Just as the European People’s Party (EPP) has been pitching itself as the ‘farmer’s party’, the Partido Popular (PP) has stepped up its public presence to assert that they, unlike the far-right Vox party, are best placed to defend farmers against the “bureaucratic behemoth” in Brussels.
The EPP has opposed key elements of EU environmental policy, including the controversial Nature Restoration Law and the latest EU legislation on the sustainable use of pesticides.
Inspired by the EPP, their Spanish PP brethren now want to take up the banner of defending the sector against the excessive bureaucracy and strict environmental rules of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) or the danger some see in the EU-Mercosur agreement.
As thousands of farmers across Europe demonstrate against Brussels’ agricultural regulations, PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo has accused the government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez (PSOE/S&D) of “inaction” in the face of the sector’s discontent, Euractiv’s partner EFE reported.
Too much bureaucracy and too low prices
The conservative party claims that Sánchez is maintaining a “complicit silence” and an “astonishing passivity”.
Last week in Brussels, Feijóo stressed that the PP was “The party of farmers, livestock farmers, and fishermen” and called on Agriculture Minister Luis Planas (PSOE/S&D) and the European Commission to listen to the sector’s demands.
In the face of growing protests from farmers, several members of the PP have met in recent days with the main associations of the sector in Spain – Asaja, COAG and Unión de Uniones de Agricultores y Ganaderos – to listen to their demands.
The PP has also asked the ministers of agriculture, transport and foreign affairs to appear in Parliament to explain what urgent measures the government intends to take to alleviate the agricultural crisis, which has also been aggravated recently by a severe drought in Catalonia and Andalusia.
The conservative party is in favour of delaying some environmental measures because it believes the Sánchez government is imposing green policies “dictated by Brussels” for ideological reasons, according to the party’s secretary general, Cuca Gamarra.
In its programme for the European elections in June, the PP promises to review the Common Agricultural Policy and make the timetable of the European Green Pact, an agreement much criticised by Spanish farmers, more flexible.
The PP demands that the pact with Mercosur and other similar trade agreements include “mirror clauses against third countries” so that products imported into Europe meet the same requirements as those produced in the EU.
Fight between the PP and Vox over the defence of farmers
In the political battle to try to be the “defenders of the farmers” is also Vox (ECR), the third force in the Spanish parliament.
The recently re-elected controversial leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, has sent letters to the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the prime minister, Gabriel Attal, to ask them to stop the “aggressions” against Spanish farmers and hauliers.
In addition, Abascal said that Spanish farmers and hauliers are “victims of the policies of Sánchez, Macron, the European Commission and also the European People’s Party”.
(Fernando Heller | EuroEFE.Euractiv.es)
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Source: euractiv.com
