Farmers protest outside, while agriculture ministers meet them inside

• Nanda Millenaar

  Editor Brussels

Plumes of smoke hang above the European institutions on Wetstraat in Brussels. Once again Flemish and Walloon farmers are demonstrating against European environmental and climate policy. A few dozen meters away, the Ministers of Agriculture agree to a package of measures to accommodate farmers. In doing so, they change their own policy, which is barely a year old.

Farmers in large parts of Europe have been protesting for months against what they consider to be far too strict requirements from the EU. The rules to make agriculture more climate and environmentally friendly are going too far and too fast for many farmers. Under pressure from the protests and the upcoming elections for the European Parliament, the European Commission came up with a series of adjustments. The Ministers of Agriculture are now adopting these proposals.

Peasant protests in Brussels also led to fires and clashes with the police:

Farmers’ protest and nuisance in Brussels

To receive agricultural subsidies from the European Union, farmers must meet certain rules. And those rules are now being relaxed. One of the new agreements is that farmers are no longer required to leave part of their agricultural land fallow. According to current rules, 4 percent of arable land may not be used, to give nature more space.

Furthermore, farmers will soon no longer have to alternate their crops, the so-called crop rotation. And farmers who cannot comply with the rules due to weather conditions are spared. Small farmers with less than 10 hectares of land are exempt from inspections and possible penalties.

NOS op 3 made this explainer about the love-hate relationship between farmers and Europe:

The love-hate relationship between farmers and Europe

The relaxations will soon allow farmers and EU countries to be more flexible with environmental requirements, without losing their rights to European money. Ultimately, around 65 percent of European farmers would benefit from the relaxations.

According to outgoing Agriculture Minister Adema, the adjustments are good news for Dutch farmers. “Overall we say: it is a good package of measures. Which gives us more flexibility as a country and which also gives the farmer less administrative burden,” the minister said after the meeting.

The common agricultural policy was established after long negotiations. The rules they are now adjusting came into effect on January 1, 2023. An unprecedentedly rapid adjustment for the European Union. Under pressure from farmers’ protests and the European elections, the European Commission and a majority of the Member States appeared to want to make quick concessions.

The relaxations are now being urgently put through the European mill. After the Commission and the ministers, only the European Parliament still needs to agree. This will happen at the end of April, during the last session of parliament. If all goes well, the adjusted rules could come into effect at the beginning of June, just before the elections.

While the agriculture ministers agree to more flexible rules, hundreds of tractors and their owners stand outside. For the third time this year there are farmers in the European Quarter. There are fewer of them than last time, but they make a lot of noise with the tractors and fireworks.

They believe that the climate and environmental requirements they have to adhere to make running a farm impossible. “The problem is that EU politicians do not understand how agriculture works in practice. There are so many new rules that we cannot adhere to at all,” says a Walloon farmer.

Inside, the ministers hope that the compensation will be enough to restore calm. And that the farmers cannot find Wetstraat again.