Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, Greek, Italy, Poland throughout Europe farmers went to the streets, they drove trucks, tractors blocking the streets of the building. On February 1, the farmer's movement shook the hearts of the European Union, while the leaders organized a summit to Ukraine inside the European Parliament building outside the outside. They threw eggs into the building, blowing prison and burning fire.
According to the latest statistics, agriculture accounts for only 1.4% of the European Union's GDP and why these farmers act like that. Start in Spain. The three farmer associations blocked the roads in eight autonomous regions. In just the first three days of the movement, the authorities fined more than 5,000 people, including at least 799 violations of the Citizenship Security Law, especially in SAS Real citizens have poured more than 25,000 liters of wine. Gold on the road, right opposite to the local water management agency to protest the limitations of water use. In Italy 1600 tractors gathered at the gateway of Roma, farmers in Milan even pulled the crawl on the road. In Greece thousands of farmers requesting financial support while the government said there was no budget to help. But of course, in accordance with the tradition of the farmer movement, the most tight is still in France, the tractors blockade large highways lead to Paris, as well as Lion cities.
Under the cold weather, farmers set up a fire tent and heat while entering the roads to the capital. Others are more friendly than they threw the new chocolate cake to the police outside Paris, a different food that many farmers blocked a milk transportation to protest the wholesale price they thought was too low. Now all of these stories have nothing to do with each other. According to analysts, there are at least four causes behind the farmer movement in the south of Europe.
One is the climate policy of the European Union. The second is the increasingly expensive life cost. Thirdly, the competition of imported goods and four is the difference between rural and urban. So now let's find out each cause.
The new EU climate policy
Recently, the EU has conducted a joint agricultural policy reform part of the European Green Agreement in July 2023. In general, the new policy made more stringent regulations to minimize emissions causing effects. Greenhouse. As I said, agriculture only accounts for 1.4% of GDP and 4.2% of EU jobs. However, it accounts for 11% of the greenhouse gas emissions of the whole block. Therefore, the green agreement sets the ambitious goals that the agricultural sector must achieve in 2030, including half of the use of chemical pesticides, antibiotics and 20% reduction Use fertilizer.
In short, promoting farmers towards sustainable agricultural production, but farmers think that many new scale are so tight to the point of absurdity, they feel strangled because of the laws of environmental protection. . Moreover, they think that many procedures are too cumbersome, costly, sustainability must be exchanged at least short -term because if they comply with strict regulations, production costs will certainly increase.
The cost is increasingly expensive, Europe is facing a very complicated situation .
Due to the war between Russia and Ukraine, the price of many items and services, especially energy, fertilizer and transport, are all higher. At the same time, governments are trying to restrain the rising food prices to control inflation. According to Eurostat data, farmers' prices received for agricultural products peaked in 2022. But since then this number has decreased nearly 9% from the third quarter of 2022 to the same period in 2023.
But this chart also shows that the input price has decreased. But it is true that avoiding coconut shells, the coconut shell, farmers in southern Europe have to suffer from many extreme and sarcastic weather phenomena, and sadly, they occur more often due to the gas change itself itself. Hau. For example, Spanish farmers face unprecedented droughts in history, making many reservoirs less than 15% of water reserves. Northeast of Italy, which has the highest agricultural areas in Europe, is also in danger of becoming a dry land due to drought and hot weather that happens more and more often.
Competition from imported goods
While European farmers must comply with more stringent regulations, higher production costs, they think that there are products from outside Europe to compete with them without having to apply similar rules. on one's own. Agriculture gradually, especially in Eastern Europe, continues to speak up in the import of cheap agricultural products from Ukraine including cereals, sugar and meat. After the conflict broke out in February 2022, Ukrainian cereal exports through the Black Sea were interrupted, the EU facilitated the Ukrainian cereal to transport through itself to other countries. But a part of Ukraine's grains trapped in Eastern European countries seriously affected the domestic market.
Moreover, agricultural products imported from Ukraine are also exempted from quota and tax. Poland is an example, this is one of the most supportive countries in Ukraine when a conflict occurred in February 2022. But exactly two years later in Poland, farmers organized opposition to Ukrainian agricultural products in Ukrainian products Hundreds of locations across the country. The image on social networks shows that Polish farmers carrying the Kingdom standing near the cars carrying Ukrainian cereals and singing the national anthem, some farmers opened the base of the Ukrainian trunk to the tracks, others driving a pitcher. Hanging the slogan of Polish farmers will go bankrupt because of the Ukrainian cereal flow.
The incident that led to the fact that Ukrainian drivers also protested in three border gates with Poland images on social networks showed that they hanged the banner as "Ukraine damaged, balan also damaged. The values of Europe ". At this moment the news about the negotiations to sign the trade agreement between the EU and the South American bloc made European farmers uncomfortable, they feared that the cheapest agricultural products from South America were the grain and meat sugar and meat would be. Unluestly competitive with domestic products.
In this context, France seemed to have filmed President Emmanuel Macron that the country wanted to offer clear measures with goods imported from Ukraine because in the EU, there were items that were instability for the market in quantity and quantity. Quality, whether it is chicken or cereal. This statement marked a change in the view of France because the country had previously opposed the Eastern European countries to limit the limited agricultural products imported from Ukraine.
The gap in urban and rural areas
In general, farmers' movement partly reflects the general mood in rural communities in Europe, which is the mood of those who feel their government and the common EU's government. Indeed, in recent years in many European countries, the poor oil difference between rural and urban areas has been increasing. From 2012 to 2022, the income difference between these two regions has increased nearly 20%, the polls also show that people in rural areas feel more ignored by the national government, they also believe less. Thought and the EU government is more, the difference is also shown in the election behavior of the elected people in the countryside tend to vote for skeptical candidates about the EU, conservative and anti -immigrant parties.
In addition, every European country has its own concerns, for example, in France the government's plan to increase the dau dau dau dau tax in the field of agriculture to promote clean energy has caused indignation. Facing the harsh reaction the Government announced the cancellation of the plan and committed to loosen the environmental control regulations, or in the Netherlands, the specific issue of Nitrogen taxing affecting pig and poultry breeding. So what will happen next at the national level, some governments have given in to France, Germany has also withdrawn a part of the plan to cut diesel oil subsidies, or Greece has also declared an extension. Special tax reduction time for agricultural diesel oil for another year.
At the EU level, the alliance will also delay the regulations requiring farmers to reserve land to enhance fertility and biodiversity. Even so, many farmers still think that they have not gone far enough and call on the brothers to continue acting, I do not know what will happen next but surely both the EU and the national governments. It will be much more cautious when providing policies. I mean not only the farmers' policies but also any climate policy, it also shows that even with Europe, the green conversion is not a simple problem. They can do things that are easy first, build this and that, but it will be time for them to solve more tough questions like how to produce more and more sustainable while still having to ensure the level. Life of producers. How to not trade the environment for economic benefits, setting ambition goals is easy but how to complete is the problem.