Political parties, governments and institutions are positioning themselves to face what will be the main battlehorse of the European Parliament elections on June 9, 2024, the future of the European green agenda. The current legislature, marked by the convergence of a pandemic and a war, has been the most active in history in this field but the signs of political and social fatigue are multiplying, and the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, promoter of the so-called Green Pact, has taken note. "We should pay attention to the absorption capacity" of these changes by the European economy, the popular German said this week.
The first warning signs came from the field. During the last year, tractors have taken to the streets of many European countries - and of Brussels - in protest against emission reduction regulations, the rise in production costs, the fall in prices resulting from the entry of Ukrainian grain without tariffs in the community market or the effects of the drought. This malaise has already had a political translation in the Netherlands, where the recent electoral victory of the Citizen Peasant Movement is putting the continuity of the Government on the ropes. The revolt of Polish farmers against Ukrainian cereal has led the Government, which is facing elections in the autumn, to act and ally with other Eastern countries to shield their markets.
The complaints from the countryside have found an echo in the parliamentary group of the European People's Party, which has called for a two-year moratorium on all pending legislative measures of the Green Pact, especially the proposal on pesticides and the restoration of natural spaces. "The EPP has been and is the voice and defender of European farmers and ranchers and rural communities," they insist in a resolution approved by the party's political assembly at its recent meeting in Munich. Another factor to take into account, apart from the European elections, is the holding of general elections not only in Poland but also in Greece and Spain, three countries where the popular have critical interests.
In recent years, the EPP has seen the far right gain ground in national governments and institutions. Now they fear for this sector of their classical electorate, and their current president, as well as a parliamentary leader, the Bavarian Manfred Weber, intends to attract some of these formations to his group, a strategy that could blow up the traditional alliance with the European socialist group, key to push forward legislation in the European Parliament. The president of the Environment Committee of the European Parliament, the French environmentalist Pascal Canfin, has denounced the "radicalization of the PPE against the Green Pact" and warns that, in case of giving in to their demands in the negotiation of the market reform of carbon emissions, the EU will not reach the climate targets it has set for 2030.
What the EPP did not expect is that the President of the French Republic, Emmanuel Macron, would also join their cause and call Brussels to attention as he did last Thursday when presenting his strategy for the reindustrialization of France, when he demanded “a regulatory pause”. "Now is the time to execute, we do not have to change more rules because otherwise we are going to lose a lot of people along the way," Macron claimed in a speech in Paris before a large group of French businessmen.
The Elisha and his allies in the Eurochamber clarified that the president was not asking to stop the processing of the proposals that are on the table or stop applying any rule, but the message reached its addressee, the place where today "rules are made and changed ", the Berlaymont, the seat of the community executive. In Brussels, Macron's message has been interpreted as a warning regarding the work program of the future European Commission, which Von der Leyen, whom he himself proposed as president, aspires to continue leading, and the German has shown sensitive to the change of winds in Europe. "We have approved an enormous number of proposals, it is something we can be proud of," she claimed on Monday, asked about the debate, before suggesting that the community legislative machine could slow down.
European farmers appreciate the political attention, even if it is because there are elections. "The frustration is very great", confirms Juan Corbalán, delegate in Brussels of Cooperativas Agroalimentarias de España, an organization associated with the European agricultural lobby, Copa-Cogeca, who denounces "contradictions" such as Germany promoting the green agenda but backing down with the car engines because it affects their economy or that while Macron asks for less regulation, his party, which is part of the liberal group in the European Parliament, continues to press in favor. Furthermore, he adds, many recent proposals are based on pre-war impact studies and do not take into account new challenges, such as food security or rising prices.
"Lately, most of the proposals that come out of the Commission that affect the countryside have not come from the General Directorate of Agriculture but from other departments," laments Corbalán, who criticizes the fact that the efforts that the sector has already made are not taken into account. to adapt to new environmental requirements. This is what happens, he says, with the proposal to reduce the use of pesticides by 50%: "if you propose to remove half of what there is now, which in many areas are used as a last resort, you will be left without tools" to work. "At a technical level, the institutions understand what we are talking about, but then, at the highest political level, the strategy is different and they are going too fast. We are not asking that anything be withdrawn, only that our interests be taken into account."
