(CN) — Backers of the European Union's ambitious Green Deal suffered a major blow on Tuesday after the European Commission scrapped plans to push farmers to use fewer pesticides and slash carbon emissions.
The volte-face by the EU's executive body was a response to weeks of protests by farmers who are angry about falling profits, red tape, rising costs and the burden of the EU's flagship Green Deal, a pioneering effort to make the EU the world's leader in fighting climate change by drastically reducing carbon emissions by 2050 and restoring natural systems.
Tuesday's developments could be seen as a defeat for those advocating Europe must move away from heavily subsidized industrial farming both for the good of nature and for the fight against climate change.
The Green Deal set out to make agriculture in the EU more organic and less polluting, but those aspirations are now in jeopardy.
In a speech to the European Parliament, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the end of a proposed law seeking to slash pesticide use by 50% by 2030.
She said the bill had become a “symbol of polarization” and that it had be nixed after its progress stalled within the EU's legislative process. The rules already had been watered down considerably, upsetting environmentalists. She said a new pesticide bill would be proposed after negotiations with farmers, environmentalists, agrochemical companies, banks and others.
In a separate announcement about a new strategy to reduce emissions by 90% by 2040 compared to 1990 levels, the commission deleted language calling on the agriculture sector to make big cuts in its carbon emissions. In earlier drafts, the plan targeted emissions linked to farming, such as methane belched by cows, and called on farmers to reduce their livestock herds and Europeans to eat less meat.
Also angering environmentalists, the new goals omitted deadlines for phasing out coal, oil and natural gas, and did not call for an end to subsidies for fossil fuel projects, environmental groups said. Earlier drafts included tougher measures.
Instead, the guidelines focused on reaching the 90% target by using technology and methods to remove carbon from the atmosphere or stop it from being emitted at industrial sites. Such approaches are controversial because they are deemed ineffective and untested by many scientists.
The European Environmental Bureau, a Brussels-based non-profit, called it a “careless plan” unlikely to achieve its goals because of an “over-reliance on expensive and unproven technologies.”
Tuesday's concessions to farmers came a week after the commission delayed by a year new requirements compelling many large farms that get EU funds to set aside 4% of their land for nature. Under this rule, farmers will need to leave land fallow or plant such features as hedges and trees.
In her speech, von der Leyen made it clear that she was ready to take farmers' complaints seriously and she showed willingness to retreat from the Green Deal, a policy she's made central to her presidency.
She is coming under intense pressure not only from farmers but also her political group, the conservative European People's Party, the main force in the European Parliament.
The EPP has increasingly spoken out against many of the more stringent aspects of the Green Deal, arguing they are too costly for industry and farmers. In doing so, the EPP is seeking to stave off far-right rivals who are courting farmers as they surge ahead of June elections for the European Parliament.
For her part, von der Leyen may be shifting her stance along with the EPP because she is likely to seek a second mandate as commission president following the elections.
“Many [farmers] feel pushed into a corner,” von der Leyen said. “Our farmers deserve to be listened to.”
She said farmers are feeling the brunt of climate change as droughts and floods destroy crops and threaten livestock; at the same time, she said they're hurting from inflation and rising costs for energy and fertilizers.
“I know they are worried about the future of agriculture and their future as farmers,” she said.
But in keeping with the goals of the Green Deal, she added, the EU must “move beyond a polarized debate and develop trust” to ensure that farming can be both lucrative and less damaging to nature.
“Only if we achieve our climate and environmental goals together will farmers be able to continue to make a living,” she said.
She said this should be done by offering farmers “generous incentives” to take measures to improve soil quality and biodiversity while also reducing carbon emissions.
Still, environmentalists blasted von der Leyen's backpedaling and said weakening the Green Deal will end up hurting farmers by worsening the climate crisis and causing further damage to nature.
“Politicians ignoring scientific advice on helping farmers move away from overproduction of meat and dairy makes climate change worse and leaves European farming more exposed to extreme weather,” said Marco Contiero, an agriculture policy specialist for Greenpeace. “Farmers are nature's best allies, when the rules, markets and subsidies don't force them into a desperate choice between industrial production or bankruptcy.”
Philippe Lamberts, a leader of the Greens in the European Parliament, accused the EPP and other political groups of “disinformation” and “outright lies” about how the Green Deal and Green parties were to blame for the problems faced by farmers.
“They pretend to listen to the farmers; actually, they dictate to the farmers what they should say: Point the finger at the Greens,” he said during a news conference. “When you listen to the farmers, what do they tell you? That they are crushed by an economic system that gives them zero profitability, zero degree of freedom.”
He said the cause for the farmers' woes lies with political groups like the EPP that back free-trade deals, big agrochemical companies, the food retail sector and banking institutions.
“They've been screwing the countryside and then they pose as their saviors,” he said. “And that's just an outright lie.”
Lamberts said carrying out the Green Deal will involve big changes for farmers. To achieve this change, he said the EU needs to reform its hugely subsidized agricultural system so that farmers aren't paid subsidies for what they produce but rather for taking costly environmental measures.
“In a well-functioning market economy, they [farmers] should be able to sell their wares, what they produce, with a profit and then get rewarded with subsidies for services they provide to society that they cannot be paid for,” he said. “I mean, when you restore biodiversity, you cannot sell biodiversity on the market; but that is work and every work must be compensated by an income.”
Courthouse News reporter Cain Burdeau is based in the European Union.
Follow @cainburdeau
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