A ghost is haunting Europe and this time it is not the ghost of communism, promoted by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1848. Nor is it the first fascism that germinated from 1919 on the northern Italian plain to drive away the ghost of communism by breaking the legs of the peasant unionism. Nor is it the neoliberal specter invoked by Margaret Thatcher in 1979 with a thunderous cry: “Society does not exist, only the individual exists!” The ghost that now haunts Europe rebels against the new religion of environmentalism and its urban prophets. Small and medium-sized agricultural properties defend their incomes and stand up against the accumulation of green regulations.
In Brussels they are scared because there are only four months left until the European elections in June. In Paris, Emmanuel Macron has ordered the Government to position itself next to the protest, to intercept the National Front. Ségolène Royale, the Zapatera of 2007, the last muse of French socialism, has joined the initiative attacking Spanish tomatoes. In Germany, the federal government of social democrats, greens and liberals is in its lowest hours, harassed by tractors. The conservative CDU-CSU alliance seems to be able to capitalize better on protests than the AfD (far right). Manfred Weber, leader of the European People’s Party, rubs his hands. Ursula von der Leyen wants to look good to everyone to be re-elected president of the Commission after June. In Italy, Giorgia Meloni is willing to grant everything necessary to Coldiretti (the main organization of Italian farmers), so that Matteo Salvini’s League does not take the vote of the tractors. However, Coldiretti is being overwhelmed by the bases. There have also been protests in Portugal and Greece. The wave will arrive this week in Spain with Vox accents in the first manifestos. Vox strives to be the Voice of the Field. The Popular Party does not want that flag to be taken away.
The wave arrives this week, but its foam has already been visible in recent days in various provinces (León, Zamora, Salamanca…). Chains of messages via WhatsApp called on farmers to mobilize without waiting for traditional organizations. Spontaneism. Spontaneism with the Vox seal. In that chain of messages, a manifesto signed by a National Group of Farmers and Ranchers of the Primary Sector appeared this week, which raised the first protest platform for Agrarian February.
Reduce the demands of the new CAP. Repeal of the 20/30 Agenda. Reduction of bureaucratic burden. More tax reduction on agricultural diesel. Repeal of laws that threaten rural areas (for example, the Animal Protection law). Greater rigor with imports. A law to limit climate geoengineering practices (techniques being studied to intervene on a large scale in the climate to reverse global warming). The manifesto, attention, concludes with two political points: prohibiting public financing of parties and implementing a new majority-style electoral law based on single-member districts of one hundred thousand inhabitants. An electoral law that would give all power to internal Spain.
Someone dreams of an agricultural 15-M. The transporter Manolín and his platform are also around. An alternative coordinator is being forged. The Popular Party was hours away from convening its Agriculture Councilors tomorrow in Genoa. The PP has handed over to Vox the Ministries of Agriculture of Castilla y León, the Valencian Community and Aragon, with both parties sharing that of Extremadura. They may now be regretting it. The PP has been radicalizing its discourse for weeks to reduce Vox’s vote to a minimum in the next elections in Galicia, a vote that could cause them displeasure. Vox wants to attest to life after the depression after July 23. An agrarian 15-M in the middle of the debate on the Amnesty law. That would be the plan.
The Minister of Agriculture, the socialist Luis Planas, an experienced negotiator, an essential piece in the Government of Pedro Sánchez, called the agricultural organizations this week before knowing their platform. He wanted to draw a frame before the explosion, if there is an explosion.
Moment of epoch: the collision between agricultural property and environmental acceleration in the European Union. The issue is the depth of the protest four months before the European elections. The issue is who rides the four-wheeled horse better: the conventional right or the extreme right.
