Four months before the elections to the European Parliament, the gestures of detente towards the agricultural sector are multiplying with a view to appeasing the protests that are sweeping the territory of the Union, from Spain to Germany passing through France, Italy, Poland and the Netherlands, where A year and a half ago, the first major mobilizations against community environmental policies and the Green Deal began. Today the European Commission has proposed to the Twenty-Seven to set a target of reducing emissions by 90% in 2040 compared to 1990 levels, as an intermediate step towards the climate neutrality that they want to achieve in 2050, but from the text of the communication they have possible cut targets for farmers disappeared at the last minute.
The first drafts of the initiative, to which La Vanguardia has had access, proposed reducing gases linked to agriculture by 30% compared to 2015 levels between now and 2040. They also spoke of the need for citizens to change certain consumption habits and the importance of the industry offering “affordable” alternatives to have “healthier diets based on a varied intake of proteins” and “sustainable”, an allusion to the reduction of meat consumption that also does not appear in the adopted document today by the College of European Commissioners.
The proposal on the last intermediate objective before 2050, when the EU has set itself climate neutrality as its goal, aims to comply with the commitment of the Paris agreement to keep global warming below 2º and implies betting on a massive deployment of renewable energies, an almost total reduction in the use of gas and the end of coal. “Setting a climate goal for 2040 will help European industry, investors, citizens and governments make decisions during this decade to keep the EU on track to meet its 2050 goal,” defends the communication, which contemplates the use of the still incipient carbon capture technologies to reach the 90% goal.
At the same time, the Commission recognizes that these goals can only be carried out “if the 2030 objectives [-55% emissions] are achieved, the competitiveness of the European industry is guaranteed, there is more attention to a just transition that does not leave no one behind, a level playing field with respect to international partners and a strategic dialogue on the post-2030 framework” that includes industry and representatives of the field. With “the right policies and supports”, the proposal approved today maintains, the agricultural sector can play a role in the transition while “ensuring food production” in Europe and “maintaining fair income levels.”
Driven by the war in Ukraine and the urgency to accelerate the energy transition, the Green Deal has been the hallmark of the ‘Von der Leyen Commission’ but the level of ambition is beginning to languish in the face of complaints from growing sectors of society – with the countryside and the conservative parties at the helm, including the European People’s Party, to which the German belongs – due to the cost of these policies in economic terms and regulatory burden. The proposal approved today, which is not legislative but political in nature, comes in the midst of a wave of protests, a massive mobilization that has forced a rapid response from the EU. In a matter of days, Brussels has proposed eliminating the obligation to fallow part of arable land this year, authorizing safeguards against Ukrainian imports and withdrawing, as Von der Leyen announced today.
