Timmermans and Thunberg eye partnership to green EU farm reforms

 

Timmermans and Thunberg eye partnership to green EU farm reforms

 

The EU Green Deal chief met with youth activists and found common cause over the Common Agricultural Policy.

 

November 25, 2020 10:59 pm

https://www.politico.eu/article/timmermans-thunberg-cap-common-agricultural-policy-green-deal-climate-emissions-greta/

 

Greta Thunberg and Frans Timmermans each have something the other needs.

 

The European Commission's executive vice president and Green Deal chief has executive power. Thunberg and her youth movement can sway public opinion.

 

They also have a common goal — to ensure that the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, the EU's giant €48 billion-per-year farm subsidy program, doesn't become a drag on Europe's effort to cut carbon. That's what they discussed when Timmermans, Thunberg and other youth activists met virtually on Wednesday.

 

The CAP's first brush with the Green Deal last month resulted in a victory for Europe's politically powerful farmers, as EU lawmakers and ministers diluted some green provisions in the Commission's farming proposal.

 

According to Belgian activist Anuna De Wever, 19, who was on the call, Timmermans told them he was "as disappointed as us" at what happened to the CAP.

 

After the call, Timmermans tweeted that they had agreed the agricultural reforms were of "crucial importance" to Europe's climate goals.

 

What Thunberg brings to the table is support for what the Dutch commissioner has threatened to do — pull the plug on the whole CAP reform effort and start again. When he made the warning, he was slapped down by his boss, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Now he's got Thunberg in his corner. She said that the nuclear option of yanking the CAP was "the only responsible thing to do."

 

Thunberg has already been boosting Timmermans on social media and she said the movement would keep up the pressure.

 

It's clear that Timmermans needs reinforcements to deal with the farm lobby. For all the power of his office, he was unable to command the field during the first major legislative Green Deal skirmishes last month.

 

That was “a short term victory for the more conservative agricultural interests of some member states,” according to a new report prepared for the European Parliament’s agriculture committee.

 

Short term or not, the recent defeats were a major stumble for Timmermans’ goal to glaze every EU policy in green. He needs help if he's to replace the CAP proposal with a more climate-friendly version.

 

According to 19-year-old Belgian activist Adélaïde Charlier, Timmermans told them he wished there were a "bigger public debate" over the CAP.

 

That's where Thunberg, 17, and her youthful counterparts can help. The Fridays for Future movement has galvanized public opinion around the world in favor of much more radical climate action. For Thunberg, even the Green Deal with its climate neutrality target three decades in the future is "surrender."

 

The world’s climate politics is dominated by greybeards. But the gerontocracy can’t hold the moral high ground on climate, so courting the youth, even as they slam intergenerational injustice, is now a common strategy.

 

For now, Timmermans, 59, is giving traditional Brussels politics a chance. Next week, he meets with Europe’s biggest agriculture lobby, Copa-Cogeca, and said in his tweet that he would focus on negotiations with lawmakers.

 

 

But he and the youth activists did agree to a follow up meeting, possibly in January.

 

"I don't think those meetings are about anyone satisfying anyone," said German activist Luisa Neubauer, 24. "But we are making sure that we don't misunderstand each other."