Can Europe make ecological farming competitive?
Last year farmers' protested against red tape pinned to EU funding, and their demonstrations yielded results. The European Commission has been simplifying farmers' environmental obligations, but how will it reform the Common Agricultural Policy in the next EU budget?
READ MORE : http://www.euronews.com/2025/06/03/can-europe-make-ecological-farming-competitive
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Last year farmers' protested against red tape pinned to EU funding, and their demonstrations yielded results. The European Commission has been simplifying farmers' environmental obligations, but how will it reform the Common Agricultural Policy in the next EU budget?
READ MORE : http://www.euronews.com/2025/06/03/can-europe-make-ecological-farming-competitive
Subscribe to our channel. Euronews is available on Dailymotion in 12 languages
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00:00Farmer's protests a year ago against bureaucracy attached to EU funding have yielded results.
00:20The European Commission has been simplifying farmer's environmental obligations,
00:24which in turn led to criticism by supporters of the European Green Deal.
00:30Meanwhile, farmers are preparing a new battlefront to avoid cuts in the Common Agricultural Policy in the next EU budget.
00:38The reform of European agriculture is at the heart of this EU decoded.
00:42The legislative simplification aims to save farmers 1.58 billion euros and member states 210 million euros per year.
00:52To achieve that, the European Commission proposes easier payments for small farmers,
00:56including a raise of the annual lump sum to 2,500 euros,
01:01more flexible environmental controls, including for conservation of peatlands, wetlands and watercourses,
01:08easier mechanism to be reimbursed in case of natural disaster or animal disease,
01:13a single digital system to reduce paperwork.
01:16Farmers are pleased, but environmentalists say that measures will backfire.
01:22The latter argue that less environmental protection could lead to more climate change that could harm agriculture.
01:29Here's what some Europeans think about this challenge.
01:32I think the normative, if it is the question, has to be much more strict and encourage them to help them,
01:40but on the other hand, control them the way they have to act and legal.
01:45But they have to have certain norms that allow them to preserve both the environment and the health of everyone.
01:53I think there is a lot of bureaucracy in Europe, so that's why farmers have so many norms.
02:00If the farmers lose their ability to have income, they're going to stop producing,
02:05and then what's going to happen to us, the consumers?
02:07The responsibilities being put on them rather than the actual culprits, which are massive corporations.
02:13We can't renounce to agriculture in Europe. We don't have to be dependent on importations.
02:21With me is Gerardo Fortuna, one of Euronews' agriculture policy experts.
02:26What is the expected outcome of simplifying the EU agriculture rulebook?
02:31The goal is to make farmers' lives easier, basically, insist on their livelihoods and their well-being.
02:38And it's, of course, clearly in response to the major farmers' protests that we've seen last year in Brussels and across the rest of the EU countries.
02:47So how does agriculture have to evolve in the European Union in order to meet its goals for climate and environmental protection within the Green Deal?
02:58I'm a bit pessimistic about it because the agriculture and food part of the Green Deal, the farm-to-fork strategy,
03:05has been put aside in this mandate, has been replaced by this EU agriculture and food vision,
03:12that is not meeting the same environmental concerns, let's say.
03:17There will be an attempt from EU lawmakers to try to meet the environmental targets
03:22through innovation and technology rather than just stricter regulation.
03:27The next battle for farmers will be the common agriculture policy revision within the new EU budget for 2028-2034.
03:38What are the farmers' demands regarding this fund?
03:41This fund is a bit different because they might lose the rural development,
03:45so it's the second pillar of the common agricultural policy,
03:48which includes environmental investments but also support rural communities.
03:54And at the same time they want these payments to be indexed to inflation
03:59and they also want a stronger protection when it comes to trade deals.
04:04Thank you, Gerardo.
04:05Let's see now some more data on this agriculture reform.
04:08In the EU budget for 2021-2027, the cap received 386.6 billion euros, about one-third of the total budget.
04:19For the 2028-2034 budget, the Commission advocates merging the cap with the cohesion fund,
04:26the latter used for regional development.
04:28The new financial instrument, called National and Regional Investment Partnerships, may be presented in July.
04:35The European Parliament opposes this idea and, in recent resolution, demanded that the fund remain autonomous
04:42and receive even more funds in the next budget.
04:45Let's hear the positions of two entities with opposing views on this subject,
04:50the Environmental Organisation Client Earth and the Farmers' Association Copa Coscheca.
05:00So in these proposals, clearly the environmental objectives are there.
05:06The Commission intervenes on some elements in which the first two years of implementation of the CAP,
05:12which proved to be unworkable for our farmers.
05:16What we absolutely need to understand is that farming relies on nature.
05:22So when the EU, since actually several years, is postponing or stripping off environmental rules,
05:33it also jeopardizes the future of farming, of farmers' jobs, of farmers' health,
05:40because they are impacted by some practices as well.
05:44If you think that the average farm size is 17 hectares,
05:54so you have the small, the medium, bigger.
05:57But the key element is the diversity.
05:59So we are able to maintain this diversity, which allows to contribute to food security in Europe,
06:05but also reduce food insecurity outside Europe.
06:11From my point of view, the competitivity of the EU or its food sovereignty is not guaranteed in the long term,
06:17because we do not have a resilience in front of natural harm that is being caused,
06:25notably by farming practices, intensive practices, but that farmers are also victims of.
06:32It is not addressing the causes that put farmers in these situations,
06:37which is climate change and the degradation of the environment,
06:42the loss of pollinators, and so on and so forth.
06:49Europe needs to invest in agriculture, and with a strong budget increase to inflation.
06:55We call to maintain a common policy, able to ensure single market,
07:01invest to do the transition that society wants, and actually support a strategic sector as agriculture.
07:10I think that we need to invest in agriculture, so we need money for the agriculture sector,
07:17but we need this money to not constitute harmful subsidies.
07:21Currently, only 20% of the beneficiaries of the cap receive 80% of the subsidies.
07:29This is enormous.
07:31The long and sometimes violent wave of protests by farmers ahead of the 2024 European elections
07:37has changed the discourse on the Green Deal.
07:40The majority in the European Parliament is now calling for more support for agriculture
07:46and less ambitions for the ecological transition.
07:49The negotiations on the next new budget will test how deep the bloc's agricultural reform will be.