The centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) has taken aim at ‘green deal’ legislation championed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Von der Leyen, who hails from the same centre-right alliance, says her proposals would reverse damage to the environment, but Euro MPs argue they threaten food production and farmers’ livelihoods.
The European People’s Party, the European Parliament’s largest group, will on Friday call to scrap two flagship pieces of legislation promoted by the European Commission President, the Financial Times has reported.
If the EPP gets its way, Commission plans to cut pesticide use in half and re-wild a fifth of damaged habitats across the bloc by 2030 would be in jeopardy.
The political assembly of the European People’s Party is to meet in Munich, Germany, on May 4 and 5 to discuss, among other topics, its role as advocate of European farmers.
EPP delegates are expected to approve a resolution rejecting von der Leyen’s proposals, according to the FT. “We reject the proposal on pesticides as the reduction targets chosen are simply not feasible and the proposal does not offer farmers viable alternatives,” the resolution reads. They fear cutting pesticide use will reduce crop yields and in turn make investments in agriculture insecure.
The draft text also rejects the Commission’s proposed law on “nature restoration”, arguing that existing legislation has created a “bureaucratic nightmare and planning deadlock, endangering food security, renewable energy production [and] crucial infrastructure”.
The EPP claims the plan would take 10 per cent of farmland out of production. It would “make a big hole in the already very thin farmers’ budgets, will endanger the availability of European food and will increase inflation”, said Herbert Dorfmann, the EPP agriculture spokesman in the European Parliament.
The issue seems to have split the centre-right. On one hand, nine Commissioners are EPP members and therefore support the EU green deal, whereas the EPP itself, including President Manfred Weber, argues that the war in Ukraine, which has stoked inflation and cut food production, means farmers should be freed to maximise output.
These concerns are reflected across the EU. The Farmer-Citizen Movement in the Netherlands took the electorate by storm earlier this year, while in Poland angry farmers convinced the government to block Ukrainian grain imports that had reduced prices locally.
The Commission could lose Parliament support without the backing of the EPP.
Renew, the Liberal Group, is also split on this issue, while the right-wing parties oppose the green deal. There is also opposition on the Left given that costs have fallen disproportionately on the poor, they say. Member States have already rejected parts of the pesticide regulation. Last year, Sri Lanka had to return to the use of pesticides after a nationwide experiment relying on organic farming went catastrophically wrong.
