Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have rolled over for big agribusiness, sabotaging the EU’s agricultural reform via the Common Agricultural Policy – key to fighting the climate and biodiversity crises.
Agricultural reform via Common Agricultural Policy
On Thursday 11 April, the European Parliament gave its green light to fast-track the vote on a last-minute reform of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
The CAP is the EU’s system of agricultural subsidies, to support farmers across the bloc. The EU has been in the process of reforming it for the 2023 to 2027 period. In December 2021, EU member states formally adopted the agreement. Following this, the new legislation came into force on 1 January 2023.
Historically, the EU CAP has mainly benefited big landowners – in other words large farms and the agribusiness industry – over smallholder farmers. This is because the EU ties subsidies to the land area, meaning if you had more land, you’d receive greater financial support. [Pdf, p7]
Invariably, by propping up large-scale intensive agriculture, the CAP has been a key driver of the biodiversity crisis. Moreover, it has ploughed funding into the hands of some of the most climate destructive parts of the industry. For example, a study in Nature found that the EU was funneling over 80% of CAP subsidies to carbon emissions-intensive animal agriculture.
Given this, the EU has been updating the CAP to align with the EU’s Green New Deal. As a result, it introduced a series of new green measures. For instance, this included leaving land fallow and maintaining some permanent grassland.
Farmer protests
However, farmers across Europe have held huge demonstrations against the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in its current form.
Partly, this was indeed in response to some of the new green regulations. Despite this, the protesters’ demands have been far from homogenous. Notably, a Carbon Brief analysis identified that not all the issues the protesters are raising, are related to climate, conservation, biodiversity, or greenhouse gas emissions.
Moreover, as Desmog reported, while some farmers have campaigned against the climate-focused elements of the new CAP, others have called for the EU to strengthen it.
For instance, this included members of the European chapter of peasant, Indigenous, and landworker movement La Via Campesina. On the same day MEPs fast-tracked these reforms, European Coordination Via Campesina penned a letter with IFOAM Organics Europe to commission president Ursula von der Layen. In it, they argued:
while reducing administrative burdens for farmers is necessary, this must not result in lower environmental ambitions and further exacerbating the impact of climate change and of the biodiversity collapse that farmers already witness. On the contrary, any revision of European legislation should strengthen and protect the most sustainable, organic and agroecological models of agriculture and prepare the necessary transition of the European agri-food system. The proposed simplification rules will
ultimately only exacerbate discontent in the farming community as they neither support farmers in
increasing their resilience nor do they address the real issues that farmers face, which is the lack of fair
prices for their products and lack of a decent income.
By contrast, Desmog also underscored how far-right groups across Europe have capitalised on the discontent to garner electoral gains. They have teamed up with big agribusiness to rail against so-called net zero ‘red tape’.
On top of this, it pointed to a EU-wide lobby group – Copa-Cogeca – that has been lobbying against the green reforms. It noted that the group has largely championed the interests of the agribusiness industry. A separate investigation by Lighthouse Reports highlighted that many small-holder farmers do not feel that Copa-Cogeca speaks for them.
Parliament “muzzling democratic debate”
Nevertheless, the EU has bowed to the pressure from big agribusiness. First, in March, the European Commission put forward new reforms for the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Primarily, these will overhaul its green measures.
Now, the European Parliament is pushing forward with a vote on these reforms.
As Euractiv reported:
the EU executive proposed two regulations laying down changes to six of the nine Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions (GAECs) standards on which CAP payments hinge upon, and giving member states more flexibility to implement the policy.
Groups have said MEPs did so despite this jeopardising the EU’s ability to tackle the biodiversity and climate crises and the threat it poses to the future of farming.
A network of over 180 environmental organisations, the European Environment Bureau (EEB) spoke out against the move. In a press release, it said:
The unlawful and antidemocratic proposal lacks the scientific evidence, proper argument and public consultation and fails to justify why or how the removal of environmental requirements will support farmers in the short term. In the long term, if adopted, it will leave farmers even more vulnerable to the impacts of the climate crisis and biodiversity loss.
EEB’s director for nature, health and environment Faustine Bas-Defossez said:
It is shameful that such a large majority of MEPs voted in support of muzzling democratic debate on a proposal that lacks any scientific evidence. If passed the proposed simplification of the CAP will do nothing to support farmers and will in fact make them even more vulnerable to the impact of the climate and biodiversity crises which are the real threats to food security
The Parliament’s decision to fast-track the vote on a proposal that affects 1/3 of the EU budget in incredibly irresponsible. Citizens expect better and will remember this vote when electing their representatives June.
Meanwhile, lawyers from environmental law group ClientEarth argued that the process that led to the reform proposal was unprecedented and undemocratic. Specifically, they said that this was the case since it failed to respect basic EU standards of transparency, public participation and evidence-based decision-making.
It also argued that the Commission had breached its legal duty under the EU Climate Law by failing to assess the consistency of the CAP reform proposal with the EU’s 2050 climate-neutrality objective and its 2030 target.
As such, ClientEarth lawyer Sarah Martin said:
Weakening the basic environmental requirements in the CAP in attempt to ‘fix’ systemic issues to the EU’s agri-food sector, will only aggravate the situation further, like rubbing salt in a wound. Undermining the elements of the CAP that are meant to preserve soils and biodiversity, will do nothing to improve the situation for farmers who are already feeling first-hand the effects of climate change and biodiversity loss. Pitting nature against farmers is a false dichotomy because there is no farming without nature.
The undemocratic way this reform has been pushed through is equally shocking. The Commission has justified deviating from its own governance guidelines by claiming a “political urgency”, despite several farming unions having opposed the changes. This type of urgent procedure has only been used to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine. Taking a crisis approach to adopt measures that require thoughtful consideration will expose farmers and people to major environmental and climate risks. These decisions should not be prepared and voted on in a matter of weeks, when doing so will have devastating repercussions.
The European Parliament has refused to see the urgency to address the climate and biodiversity crises to safeguard farmers’ future and in the process has set an extremely worrying precedent for the future of EU decision-making.”
The European Parliament vote on the legislative proposal will take place during the last plenary session between 22 to 25 April.
Feature image via NightThree/Wikimedia, resized to 1200 by 900, licensed under CC BY 2.0
