Ursula von der Leyen repeated it on Wednesday, September 4: in the first hundred days of her second term, which should begin no earlier than September 1,er November, the President of the Commission will present “a vision, a roadmap for agriculture”. It is necessary, she explained, “protect nature”, while “ensuring sufficient income for farmers”to which it promises to ease the bureaucratic burden.
German academic Peter Strohschneider then handed her a report she had commissioned at the beginning of the year, when farmers and other operators were marching across Europe to demonstrate their anger. The result of a “strategic dialogue” between all the players in the agri-food chain, but also scientists and various environmental NGOs, this work has made it possible to unite often contradictory interests around major principles.
Without going into details that might rekindle opposition, he advocates, among other things, a structural reform of the common agricultural policy (CAP) better able to help farmers who “need it most” ; the creation of a “temporary fund for a just transition (…) outside the CAP » to support the sector towards greater sustainability; greater coherence between the commercial and environmental policies of the European Union (EU); or food labelling providing information on animal welfare.
“More confidence” and “stronger incentives”
Ursula von der Leyen knows that the subject is politically risky. She still remembers the tractor parades in January, which came all the way to Brussels and forced her, a few months before the June elections, to abandon most of the restrictive measures planned to green European agriculture and protect the environment. The war in Ukraine, its consequences on inflation and the economic slowdown in the Union, as well as the predicted rise of the extreme right throughout Europe have convinced European governments to backtrack. But if the EU wants to respect the Paris Agreement and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, it cannot afford to exempt agriculture from any effort.
In this context, Angela Merkel's former minister is looking for a delicate way to pass between the imperatives of food security for the Old Continent and economic security for farmers who are often “the weakest links in the agri-food chain” and of “nature protection”. “Some farmers are forced to systematically sell their products below their cost price, this cannot continue”she continued.
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Source: Lemonde
