Why EU conservatives are targeting the farmers’
vote
Critics say the EPP’s campaign creates a false dilemma
between supporting farmers and protecting the environment.
BY LOUISE
GUILLOT AND BARTOSZ BRZEZIŃSKI
JUNE 9,
2023 3:06 PM CET
Of the
nearly 400 million eligible voters in the EU, only about 9 million work in
agriculture — but their vote is the one to get ahead of next year's European
election.
As
political parties across the bloc switch into campaign mode ahead of the 2024
ballot, European conservatives are mounting a campaign to secure the farmers'
vote in a bid to capitalize on discontent with green policies.
The
European People's Party (EPP), the largest group in the European Parliament and
an umbrella for the political center right, has seized on new legislation to
boost nature restoration — which is currently under negotiation — as a way to
portray itself as defending farmers' interests in Brussels.
The
campaign is a strategic one, experts say.
Farmers are
a tiny constituency, but they are an incredibly vocal and powerful one, said
Wouter van der Brug, a professor of political science at the University of
Amsterdam.
Their
plight also attracts sympathy — and taps into broader discontent over the rapid
pace of change as Europe pushes through green legislation aimed at tackling
climate change.
“Many
people sympathize with farmers, not just in rural areas, but also in smaller
cities, in more peripheral areas,” increasing their importance in elections,
said van der Brug.
“The
proposed reforms of the farming industry are a symbol of those rapid changes
that people object to,” he explained.
Defending
farmers has already proved to be an election winner in the Netherlands, where
the farmer-friendly FarmerCitizenMovement landed a major victory in provincial
elections in March off the back of a campaign against the government’s
clampdown on nitrogen emissions from farms.
Europe's
center-right parties — after dominating EU politics for decades — “are afraid
they're losing support, not just among the farmers … but among a wider segment
of their voters," said van der Brug. "They're losing to new parties
or to the radical right."
According
to POLITICO's Poll of Polls, the EPP could get 161 seats in the 2024 European
election, down from its current 177 seats. The European Conservatives and
Reformists, meanwhile, stand to win an extra 13 seats and the far-right
Identity and Democracy group could gain five.
Dutch EPP
MEP Esther de Lange denies that her group is pushing back against the nature
restoration law for electoral gain. "I've heard this line, it's a very
easy line," she told a press conference Wednesday.
"If I
wanted to be a populist and score easy points in the elections in the
Netherlands, I would have gone full frontal against the Green Deal. I
didn't," she added, referring to the EPP's overall support for the
Commission's Fit for 55 package of climate legislation.
'Center of attention'
Nature
restoration measures have also become a hot topic in national and regional
elections across Europe — including in Belgium and Spain — suggesting that the
EPP has hit on a hot-button issue.
“You cannot
deny that the farmers vote, but more broadly, that rural areas are becoming
very much a center of political attention for political parties across Europe,”
said Tom Vandenkendelaere, a Belgian MEP who sits with the EPP and is a member
of the Flemish conservative party CD&V.
"There
is nothing wrong with" going after the farm vote, Vandenkendelaere said.
His party, the CD&V, is trying to provide solutions to a perception that
quality of life in rural areas is in decline, he added.
Farmers in
his constituency complain about “ever more obligations coming their way and not
as much compensation for the efforts they're doing” in implementing new climate
regulations.
"If
you throw into that volcanic situation free-trade agreements, nature
legislation, rising energy prices, general market insecurity,” he said, “you
get a toxic mix."
The EPP
says twin proposals to restore the bloc's natural areas and reduce pesticide
use threaten Europe’s food security, while burdening farmers with new green
obligations and taking away their land — something the European Commission,
backed by scores of scientists, disputes.
Last month,
the party banded together with the Parliament’s more fringe right-wing groups —
the Euroskeptic European Conservatives and Reformists and the far-right
Identity and Democracy — to reject the proposal in the agriculture and
fisheries committees, then walked out of negotiations in the environment
committee.
Risky tactic
The EPP's
decision to move right in its search for allies to block the EU's nature
restoration rules — a key part of the Green Deal — has ruffled feathers.
Terry
Reintke, who leads the Greens group in the Parliament, called it a "very
dangerous move," stressing that the Green Deal is not only about fighting
climate change but also biodiversity loss.
Iratxe
García Pérez, the head of the Socialists & Democrats group, warned that
“land conservation and agricultural activities cannot be election bait.”
Right-wing politicians are posing a “false dilemma”
between “supporting farmers and protecting the environment,” she added, asking:
“What kind of future will agriculture have if climate change denial is turning
our ecosystems into deserts?”
The EPP's
tactics also put it at odds with Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, a
fellow member of the conservative group who has staked her legacy on pushing
through the Green Deal.
Some warn
that the EPP's anti-Green Deal strategy could prove counterproductive, as it
risks turning off other key demographics.
“The EPP
strategy could backfire because, thanks to the Green Deal, the group has also
gained voters — especially among younger people and people living in
cities," said Filipe Ataíde Lampe, project manager at the European Policy
Center, a Brussels-based think tank.
“The war in
Ukraine will play a major role in the European elections, but climate and
biodiversity will as well,” he added.
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