European farmers’ protest change speed but discontent continues smouldering

European farmers have been protesting for months, with demonstrations spreading around the continent, culminating in last week’s descent on Brussels, and while the movement is now changing gear, stakeholders warn more actions will be forthcoming.

To date, Austria, Denmark, Finland and Sweden are the only EU countries where farmers have not taken to the streets, and while sporadic rallies are continuing in some countries, others have taken a pause to figure out their next move and mobilise more troops.

In France, the President of the leading French farmers’ organisation FNSEA, Arnaud Rousseau, told national media on 5 February that “Agricultural anger is changing”.

“We started this movement in October”, with the initiative On Marche Sur La Tete and “we must move from anger to concrete action”, Rousseau added, giving a deadline to the government. 

“We’re giving ourselves until the Salon de l’agriculture to come up with concrete measures and until June to enshrine them in law,” Rousseau said, referring to France’s most important agricultural fair starting on 24 February.

In Germany, where farmers’ protests peaked with about 30,000 farmers and 5,000 tractors in Berlin in mid-January, the feud between the government and the growers could drag on longer. Their action depends on the outcome of a Bundesrat vote on the budget, which is unlikely to occur before 22 March. 

The updated map of the protest

The German Farmers Association DBV plans to use the time to negotiate and find a solution to phasing out the tax exemptions on fuel, the issue that sent them to the streets.

The time gained must now be used sensibly,” Joachim Rukwied, the DBV president, said on Thursday, 1 February.

According to media reports, Latvian farmers are protesting on Monday in 16 cities of the country, calling for an immediate ban on imports of foodstuffs from Russia and Belarus.

Spontaneous blockades occurred on the weekend at the Belgian-Dutch border.

In Portugal, tractors are continuing the blockades started on 2 February on the roads highway connections with Spain. 

In Italy, the recriminations against the institutional farmers’ organisations are the main driving force of the protests, unpredictable as they are led by various grassroots associations.

On Monday, media reports hundreds of tractors heading to Rome, where a “massive demonstration” is expected to be announced.

In Spain, the demonstrations are likely to intensify with the participation of a myriad of trade unions, starting next Thursday (8 February) in Castilla la Mancha. Then, Catalan growers will gather in Barcelona on 13 February, and another Madrid demonstration is expected on 21 February.

Visegrad on the move

Slovak farmers are ready to join the protest and cooperate with farmers from their Visegrad country neighbours against “EU green fanaticism”. 

Meanwhile, the Agrarian Chamber of the Czech Republic called farmers across Europe to take joint action and will discuss the coordination of pan-European protests by farmers at a meeting of the Visegrad Group (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) organisations on 12 and 13 February 2024 in Poland.

The aim is organising gatherings by the end of February.

“We will inform the public about the form of the protests in due course, just as we did during the protests last year,” said Jan Doležal, President of the Czech Chamber of Agriculture, in a press release.

“Our aim is certainly not to complicate anyone’s life, to paralyse transport in cities and to paralyse the life of society, but we want to draw attention to the broad and deepening problems of farmers”, he concluded.

Maria Simon Arboleas, Hugo Struna, Oliver Noyan, Aneta Zachova and contributed to this report

[Edited by Alice Taylor]

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