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Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
While the Commission was tardy in presenting the next EU budget – keeping Brussels on edge – around 300 farmers took to the streets in protest over looming cuts to agricultural funds.
The upcoming €2 trillion EU budget (MFF) earmarks €300 billion for agriculture, with an estimated reduction from 25% to 30%.
Marching from Parliament to the Commission, joined by a poppy-coloured chorus chanting “No budget, no CAP, no farmers, no security – will the Commission let us fall so easily?” and led by the EU farmers’ organisation Copa and Cogeca, associations from across the bloc expressed collective frustration.
Demands and fears
The associations are demanding increased agricultural funding, to be ring-fenced, and that the CAP’s two-pillar structure be preserved.Irish farmers’ leader Francis Gorman slammed the proposal of a single fund as “a kick in the teeth,” accusing Commission President Ursula von der Leyen of sidelining farmers. “Get off your high horse,” he said.
Secretary General of Copa and Cogeca, Elli Tsiforou, told Euractiv: “We see a real danger of losing the common character of this policy – of losing its structure, particularly its meaningful two-pillar system that supports farmers.”
Tsiforou called the cuts “disastrous for the future of the sector,” describing them as a counterproductive move at a time when farmers should see an increase in support.
“We will return in September with renewed efforts,” Tsiforou added, as Brussels braces for the return of tractors.
For Peter Meedendorp, president of the young farmers' association CEJA, it "is about the very essence of how policy is made in the EU".
“We are united in the internal market, we share environmental and sustainability legislation - so we also need a structural policy that supports the agricultural sector in meeting these shared challenges,” he said.
The estimated cut in the budget "would have serious consequences for the next generation of farmers,” Meedendorp lamented.
French MEP Céline Imart has already voiced her support. "If tractors have to return to Brussels to make it clear that farmers are fed up with being murdered, I will be with them."
(adm, aw)
