The bone of contention is, always, social engineering. And social engineering always comes from a feverish mind that believes it can design the world according to its own and superior understanding. The bone of contention is, always, fatal arrogance. The magma that bubbles in the heart of the European rural world responds to a terrible policy of social engineering born in 1962, which was as unfortunate as it was gigantic. Too big to fail, it remained in force, accumulated power and resources, and today it is a monster with a life of its own and with so many ramifications that it is difficult to imagine how it will end.
Los European farmers They have been protesting across the continent for some time. The protests have had different triggers, causes, leaders and moments. But they have dramatically and coordinatedly intensified their actions in recent weeks in France, Germany, Spain, Poland, the Netherlands and Latvia, among other European Union States, and reached Brussels. The fury is uncontrollable, they have blocked routes, streets, shops and public offices, they have thrown manure and eggs at the authorities, they have burned bales and looted food trucks. The magnitude of the demonstrations is unprecedented due to their scope, their simultaneity, their impact and the variety of demands at stake. Farmers, working people and not useless professional protesters willing to both claim terrorists and stir the soup to a Da Vinci for a few coins, have left their farms to settle in long lines of tractors that lay siege to the most important cities. Looking back, The tractor is a symbol that has been marking the most genuine and brave voice against right-thinking tyrannies. Worldwide.
And it is becoming increasingly difficult to be a farmer. The tragedy of the European countryside is based on a lethal clamp: a fiscal burden typical of the unpunished Welfare State and an insane and contradictory regulatory burden that also compiles, as in a mamushka, layers and layers of restrictions on production. Being a farmer requires, in addition to the sacrifice of the profession, work from dawn to dusk and fortitude in the face of drought or plague, having knowledge about laws, combined tax systems, intra- and extra-EU technological regulations, logistics, computing and an army. of advisors to be able to carry out the business. All obstacles imposed by people who believe that tomatoes grow in salad bowls.
There is a long list of complaints that go against the regulation imposed by heatological dogma, the excess of bureaucracy, the cost of fuel and energy, the impediment to using phytosanitary products added to the claims of each country. In Germany it was taxes on diesel for tractors. In the Netherlands, nitrogen taxation. In Poland, Polish farmers blocked the border to ensure that Ukrainian grain did not enter. In France, the plan to eliminate the tax exemption on fuel for the “energy transition” and the rejection of the agreement with Mercosur because they consider “unfair competition” that South American agricultural producers are not subject to the same demands.
But all this great stew of vindication and demand has its origin in that apple of discord that comes from afar and is called Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), one of the oldest European community policies. The CAP is an excellent example of how the “Iron Law of Oligarchy” works. In 1911, Robert Michels wrote his famous The political parties, where he argued that every political organization necessarily ends up becoming an oligarchy when it grows and becomes more complex. As he grows, he demands more bureaucracy and more specialists to attend to the new structure of the organization that brings together all the power and prioritizes the creation of policies that ensure permanence over the objectives of the beginnings. It’s survival, stupid!
Created in 1962, the PAC always had a constructivist and interventionist character, which adapted to the narrative of the times. Originally, through a package of subsidies for agriculture and livestock, it responded to the objectives of food self-sufficiency of the member countries of the European Economic Community (EEC, predecessor of the EU) and also sought to attack shortages. But the sorcerers’ apprentices created their own problem and a few years later the block produced much more food than it could consume but at a much more expensive cost compared to the rest of the world. So The CAP began to aim to support the artificial price of products with new subsidies and pernicious protectionism.
The original subsidy system attempted to control the market by imposing guaranteed minimum prices, which ended up with an unaffordable cost for the Member States. In the mid-80s it involved a majority percentage of the community budget. With each failure, the CAP was subjected to reforms that formatted the structure, ideology and methodology of European primary production, always seeking dependence on state alms and determining from the top down who had to produce what, beyond voluntary decisions. of the citizen. Demagoguery is always stick and alms. To no one’s surprise, in 2019 The New York Times revealed the obvious, that the CAP funds largely ended up in the pockets of businessmen and bureaucrats.
Decade after decade, the different versions of the CAP always broke what was healthy to supposedly fix what was broken, without ever having achieved more than angering all parties. However, it continued to grow in bureaucracy, with a budget close to a third of the EU’s total. It is the most expensive, oldest and most harmful policy. Of course, when the narrative of climate alarmism developed, the CAP quickly adapted, it was a perfect pairing. Precisely the current protest of the agricultural sector is directly related to the delirious impositions that have not stopped growing, such as the Green Pact and climate objectives. Currently its goals are lovingly married to the omnipresent Agenda 2030 and NetZero.
As the demonstrations grew, governments and the European Commission awarded farmers wooden candy to entertain them, but this time things did not calm down. Von de Leyen granted a temporary exemption from nature conservation rules and partly reversed the decision to allow free access to agricultural imports from Ukraine. This week, Ursula, the wishing fairy, relaxed parts of the Green Deal, removed the agricultural emissions reduction target from the 2040 climate plan and announced that the proposed reduction in pesticide use, considered crucial for biodiversity, would be rewritten. It is not clear if biodiversity itself is going to be redefined; the European Commission has a long history of creating reality by simply modifying its definitions, a miracle that is applauded by the European Parliament.
The relaxation of requirements is an attempt by the European elites to avoid being shipwrecked in the elections to which they will be subjected next June. To the mainstream bureaucrat worries that the unrest will serve right-wing parties that are already making progress across the continent. It is the oligarchy that believes it is above the democratic will and that imposes ideologized policies without thinking about the damage they will cause to the lives of millions of people by taking away control of their own destiny. This is what has led many Europeans to reject the old political parties. In particular, citizens of rural areas vote mostly for Eurosceptic parties of both the left and the right and everyone is going to compete now to please the farmers.
Many media and politicians label voters as extreme, ignorant, populist, selfish rich or xenophobic when they deviate from hegemonic preferences, but this demonstrates their inability to understand the turning point of their green and sustainable degrowth narrative. Again, it is a matter of survival, they cannot allow the popular will to end the oligarchic privileges sown more than half a century ago. European elections are a key cultural battleground between EU elites and their governed.
Farmers across the continent continue to protest. They have a golden opportunity to change the tyrannical logic of goodism that began its long journey with post-war protectionism and led to the crazy and criminal woke agenda of the 21st century. If they allow themselves to be fooled again by politicians and corporations, asking for regulations from third countries instead of demanding an end to their own, they will have lost the battle. Fighting against cheap products imported from Ukraine or Morocco is giving victory to Von der Leyen and his troupe, because it is asking for more regulation and bureaucracy, and Michels already explained how that ends. Bad, of course. European production would be cheaper and more competitive if it had fewer taxes, cheaper energy and did not have to pay the salaries of hundreds of thousands of Ursulas who make a living by ruining people.
EU officials are already weaving the spider’s web for protesters to fall, thinking up ways to overhaul the CAP, trying to find a way to calm farmers without departing from the logic of the handout that buried them in the first place. . Janusz Wojciechowski, European Commissioner for Agriculture, wants EU countries to be allowed to use state aid to top up CAP payments. “This is an exceptional situation and we have to look for exceptional solutions,” says the very mischievous man, knowing that this will demobilize the tractors and allow his revered survival.
Interventionist policies end in a humanitarian crisis, there is no other way. The unsustainable farm-to-table plan has a series of objectives that are almost a crime against humanity. By 2030 (oh, that little number!), it foresees a reduction of half of phytosanitary products (imagine if by 2030 we had to reduce 50% of the medicine that guarantees our health!), in addition to reducing 20% of chemical fertilizers and 50% of the sale of antibiotics for farmed animals (yes, they want the animals not to be cured). A study by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) considers that The Farm to Fork and Biodiversity plans would cause a brutal reduction in European agricultural production. Gradually or accelerated, the plan is to condemn the countryside. The excuse may be price controls, scarcity, abundance, cold, heat, endangered species, green policies or whatever else comes up, the issue is staying afloat in power. The battle is set and hunger always serves as a weapon. Coincidentally, at the moment when humanity produces enough food to feed everyone who exists, the oligarchy declares war on those who feed us.