The EU Commission wants to relieve the burden on farmers and is relaxing a requirement. It is uncertain whether German farmers can also take advantage of this.
The EU Commission is relaxing an environmental requirement for European farmers, although it does not have the support of a majority of EU states. The requirement to leave four percent of arable land lying fallow or used unproductively will be suspended retroactively to January 1st, as the Brussels authorities announced on Tuesday. The requirement to leave areas fallow is actually intended to protect the environment.
Federal Environment Minister Steffi Lemke (Greens) criticized: “This obligation was intended to slow down the ongoing extinction of species in our agricultural landscapes.” She is committed to ensuring that the exceptions are not implemented in Germany.
The farmers’ protests are having an impact
According to the Commission, the prerequisite for taking advantage of the exception is that farmers, in return, grow nitrogen-fixing plants such as lentils or peas or catch crops on four percent of their arable land. The first proposal mentioned seven percent of arable land for nitrogen-fixing plants. As a spokesman for the EU Commission explained when asked, this requirement was lowered after consultation with EU states in order to give farmers more flexibility.
According to the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, there was still no majority among the EU states in favor of the project on Friday. “The vote result is the receipt for the Commission’s current zigzag course,” said department head Cem Özdemir (Greens) according to the announcement. Since there was neither a sufficient majority of EU states for nor against the project in the responsible committee, the EU Commission was able to implement the exceptions independently.
With the exceptions, the EU Commission, led by Ursula von der Leyen, is meeting the demands of protesting farmers. In recent weeks, farmers in several EU countries have expressed their dissatisfaction – sometimes violently – with environmental regulations from Brussels, among other things.
Whether German farmers can make use of the exception is now in the hands of the federal government. The chairman of the EU Parliament’s Agriculture Committee, Norbert Lins, calls on Özdemir to implement the exceptions promptly. The CDU politician sees the exceptional rule as a good sign for European agriculture.
The decision makes it possible for the last remaining refuges of many species in the agricultural landscape to be shredded, criticized the environmental organization Greenpeace. “Federal Minister Özdemir must now stand firm and not join in with this nonsense in Germany,” said Greenpeace.
Source: Stern
