PROTESTS CONTINUE AS EUROPEAN POLITICIANS GRAPPLE WITH FARMERS’ ANGER

Wed 07 February 2024:

It’s another day of farmers’ protests and debates over the future of agriculture in Europe.

From Spain to Bulgaria, farmers want to have their voices heard. Meanwhile, the European parliament is debating empowering farmers and rural communities.

A group of farmers held a demonstration Tuesday outside the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, angry over shrinking incomes, rising costs and what they say are increasingly onerous green regulations.

Gathering outside the parliament, two farmers’ groups protested against a proposed regulation on certain new genomic techniques (NGTs) in the European Union.

The proposed law does not provide enough protection against the contamination of crops with new genetically modified organisms (GMOs), which are obtained through NGTs.

It could also violate the fundamental rights of farmers to property and the freedom to run a business because it does not provide sufficient protection against the contamination of crops with new GMOs, according to the international environmental group Greenpeace.

Some farmers attended the demonstration in bee and cow costumes while others arrived with their tractors, according to broadcaster BFMTV.

Another group held a gathering in the same area to protest the import of products grown against French rules.

The protest came amid growing anger by the sector in some parts of Europe including Italy, Spain and Switzerland over taxes, rising costs and cheap imports.

EU’s climate agenda

Europe’s climate agenda is entering a difficult phase as it begins to touch sensitive sectors, such as farming, and as traditional industries face fierce green tech competition from China.

A second EU document, also published on Tuesday, outlined plans to capture and store hundreds of millions of tons of CO2 emissions by 2050 – one of many areas requiring huge investment in new technologies.

The 2040 target would transform Europe’s energy mix, with coal-fuelled power phased out and overall fossil fuel use reduced by 80 percent and replaced with renewable and nuclear power.

The draft also laid out the cost of failing to tackle climate change, in the form of more destructive extreme weather which could mean additional costs of 2.4 trillion euros ($2.6 trillion) in the EU by 2050 if global warming is not limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.

The EU had reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 33 percent in 2022, from 1990 levels.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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