BRUSSELS — The European Union’s anti-deforestation law will put United States producers off exporting to the European market, harming EU competitiveness, a senior official with the U.S. Department of Agriculture told reporters in Brussels Friday. The law, also called EUDR, is “going to discourage us from looking at the European market” and from “paying attention to any European rules [linked to deforestation],” the official said. The law as it stands would affect $9 billion of U.S. trade to the EU annually, added the official, who spoke to journalists on condition that he was not named. A delegation of U.S. government representatives is finishing a tour of EU capitals — including Madrid, Rome, Paris, Berlin and Brussels — to lobby governments to simplify the EUDR ahead of an upcoming review of the rules next month. One example of a sector that could be affected is livestock farming, the official said, arguing these farmers depend on soybeans to feed their animals, and Europe does not produce enough protein feed. “It needs to import from countries that are better at it, like us,” he said, warning that the U.S. stopping that export “will drive up their costs, hurt their competitiveness.” The EU’s anti-deforestation law requires that companies police their supply chains to ensure that any commodities they use, such as palm oil, beef or coffee, have not contributed to deforestation. After complaints from industry groups and trade partners, EU institutions in December agreed to put off implementation of the law by a year — until Dec. 2026 — and mandated the Commission to present a review of the rules by April. “It’s particularly difficult for us because these [compliance] costs will be borne by our producers,” said the official. U.S. farmers also don’t want to share information on their farms with foreign governments, he said. Washington’s main qualms with the law include the fact that there’s no category of “negligible” risk in the EU’s ranking of countries by risk of deforestation. The U.S. — like all EU member countries as well as China, Canada, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Vietnam and others — has been labeled “low risk” under the EU’s deforestation classification system. Members of the European Parliament in the center-right European People’s Party have also backed the introduction of a “no risk” category, “for countries with stable or expanding forest areas.” The senior official also complained about a stipulation in the law that if the level of deforestation in any country exceeds 70,000 hectares annually, that country cannot be considered “low risk.” That standard “just doesn’t work for us,” they said. “It’s not fair.” Representatives from the European Commission are meeting with members of the delegation on Friday “at technical level” to discuss the law, a spokesperson for the European Commission confirmed to POLITICO. European Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall told reporters in January that there would be no new legislative proposal come April, saying businesses need “predictability.” A 2024 report from the U.S. Congressional Research Service estimated that, in 2023, U.S. exports of the seven commodities under the EUDR accounted for approximately 3 percent of the value of U.S. exports to the EU, “so overall the EUDR may not significantly affect U.S. trade.” European Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall told reporters in January that there would be no new legislative proposal come April, saying businesses need “predictability.” | Gabriel Luengas/Europa Press via Getty Images Still, the authors wrote, the law could affect U.S. producers of specific commodities covered by the law. In 2023, the highest value of covered commodities exported to the EU from the U.S. were wood and wood products ($4.5 billion), soybeans ($4 billion), rubber ($1.1 billion), and cattle, such as beef and related products ($409 million). Environmental groups are calling on EU governments and the Commission to stick by the EUDR and keep the rules intact. “Misleading and self-serving foreign pressure on the EU should not distract policy-makers from staying focused on facts,” said Anke Schulmeister-Oldenhove, manager for forests at WWF EU, in an emailed statement. “Every year the EUDR is postponed results in the loss of nearly 50 million trees and the release of 16.8 million tonnes of CO₂ into the atmosphere.”

BRUSSELS — Europeans should eat less meat and farms must be taxed for their planet-warming pollution if the bloc is to reach its climate goals, the EU’s scientific advisers argue in a set of far-reaching recommendations that are unlikely to get a warm welcome from farmers.  In a 350-page report published Wednesday, the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change also calls on the EU to scrap farm subsidies for climate-damaging practices, arguing sweeping measures are necessary to reduce agriculture’s contribution to global warming. To aid farmers, they propose scaling up financial support to help them transition toward greener alternatives as well as aid to cope with increasing droughts and climate disasters.  Yet environmental policies that so much as touch on agriculture have become politically toxic in recent years, with Brussels and EU capitals reluctant to address farm emissions in the face of large-scale tractor protests and intense lobbying campaigns.  Still, sticking with business as usual isn’t an option, said the board’s chair Ottmar Edenhofer.  “In order to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 within the EU, the sector has to contribute to emissions reduction,” he said.  “And if we do this in a smart way during the transition process, in a gradual way, pricing the emissions but also using the revenues to support the transition … I think this is a beneficial pathway for the whole sector and for the whole of society.”  While politically sensitive, the board’s recommendations are not revolutionary.  Plenty of scientists and even the World Bank have in recent years urged governments to ensure their citizens eat less meat and to cut environmentally harmful subsidies in order to rein in greenhouse gas emissions from food, which account for about a third of all planet-warming pollution.  And Denmark is on track to become the first country to tax agricultural pollution after Copenhagen and farmers’ associations agreed in 2024 to impose a carbon price on livestock emissions from 2030.  Yet the board’s reports carry weight. The independent consortium of scientists is tasked by EU law with providing guidance on climate policy; past recommendations have proven influential, with the board’s 2023 advice on setting a 2040 emissions-slashing target of at least 90 percent playing a major role in leading the EU to enshrine this goal in law last week.  The entire food system, from farming to consumption to waste management, produces 31 percent of the bloc’s emissions. | Quentin Top / Hans Lucas / AFP via Getty Images The recommendations on agriculture also come just as the EU drafts new policies that could incorporate some of the board’s advice — from the bloc’s next long-term budget and an upcoming revision of the EU farm subsidy program, to a slate of new green legislation designed to meet the new 2040 target, and a plan to increase resilience to climate disasters. CAPPING CAP PAYMENTS The Common Agriculture Policy (CAP), a behemoth that absorbs around a third of the EU’s budget, is a key target of the report. The current framework contains provisions around climate and biodiversity, but has failed to sufficiently slash greenhouse gas emissions. The entire food system, from farming to consumption to waste management, produces 31 percent of the bloc’s emissions. More than half of that occurs during food production — think super-polluting methane released by cows as well as fertilizer use, tractor fuel and more.  The CAP, the scientists warn, still incentivizes climate-harming practices through its vast subsidy system. The EU should therefore gradually phase out payments that are tied to livestock production, a type of income support for farmers that consumes 5 percent of the current CAP budget, they say.  In fact, they add, the EU should reconsider the entire idea of subsidies based on farmland size, worth 39 percent of the CAP budget or more than €100 billion, as they “incentivize agricultural production over other land use” such as forestry, and thus drive up emissions. On top of reforming the CAP, the EU should introduce a carbon pricing mechanism covering agriculture, building on the Emissions Trading System architecture that has successfully halved industry and power plant pollution, the scientists say.  But they argue that agricultural carbon pricing should consist of three separate systems — one each for energy-related farm emissions, non-CO2 pollution such as methane, and agricultural emissions and carbon dioxide removals from land.  The EU also needs to address consumer demand to tackle food emissions, the board says. In particular, Europeans eat too much red meat, driving up methane pollution.  The scientists recommend the EU set up national guidelines for climate-friendly diets and set mandatory standards for marketing and sustainability labeling of food to push consumers toward greener choices.  CLIMATE-PROOFING FARMS To sweeten the deal for farmers, the board suggests that with the money saved from a reformed CAP and generated through carbon pricing, the EU should support them in the transition toward climate-friendly practices and in adapting to a warmer world.  Whether the promise of funding would be enough to placate farming lobbies that have launched massive tractor protests across Europe at any hint of additional burdens for farmers is uncertain. Political appetite for green legislation has also declined in both Brussels and capitals amid a shift toward industry- and security-focused policies.  As part of its Green Deal, the European Commission in 2020 launched a Farm to Fork Strategy designed to make the bloc’s food system more environmentally friendly. The plan, however, was effectively abandoned following a backlash from lobby groups and conservative politicians.  Political appetite for green legislation has also declined amid a shift toward industry- and security-focused policies. | Marijan Murat/picture alliance via Getty Images Only last week, EU institutions struck a deal to ban vegetarian products from using certain meat-related terms.  But Edenhofer believes that there is political space to enact the board’s recommendations, pointing to Denmark’s tripartite deal establishing a carbon tax — an agreement between the government, farmers and environmental groups — as a hopeful example.  “We acknowledge that this is very complicated, but … we need a regulatory system which incentivizes emission reductions in the agri-food system,” Edenhofer insisted.

“Veggie burgers” and “vegan sausages” can remain on European supermarket shelves, EU negotiators agreed Thursday. However, only products made of animal flesh can use terms like “steak” or “bacon.” Unless that flesh was grown in a lab, in which case, those terms are also off-limits. Those are the broad contours of the compromise reached by EU institutions after an MEP’s sleeper initiative to block vegetarian alternatives from using terms associated with meat — the so-called veggie burger ban — fueled political tensions over an otherwise technical farm file. After months of debate, institutional negotiators agreed on new rules that would ban vegetarian products from using dozens of terms that are typically associated with meat, including “chicken,” “ribs,” “bacon,” “tenderloin,” “liver” and “steak.” The deal still needs to be formally signed off by the Parliament and EU member capitals. The fight exposed a deeper divide in Brussels food politics. Consumer groups attacked the lengthy list of banned words as doing little to help people trying to make choices at the store. “Consumers want to eat healthier and need convenient and affordable options,” said BEUC chief Agustín Reyna. Meat-related names “make it easy for those who want to integrate these options in their diets, and the new rules will increase confusion and are simply not necessary.” For pro-farmer lawmakers on the center-right and right, protecting meaty terminology became a symbolic show of support for livestock producers reeling from sinking profits and regulatory fatigue. They cast themselves as bulwarks against a cosmopolitan push toward alternative proteins. Greens and liberals, meanwhile, dismissed the debate as political theater aimed at farm constituencies, arguing it distracts from structural challenges in the food chain and clashes with Brussels’ competitiveness rhetoric. Negotiators ultimately agreed that veggie sausages and burgers can continue to be sold. The French MEP behind the terminology ban, Céline Imart, hailed the outcome as an “indisputable victory for our farmers.” The agreement, she added, “recognizes the value of farmers’ work and protects their products, which are the result of unique expertise, against a form of unfair competition.” Imart, a grain farmer, also pushed for protections to extend to “cell-cultured products” — i.e. meat grown in labs — which she has previously described as a threat to traditional agriculture. For frustrated lawmakers, the move takes Europe in the wrong direction, essentially knee-capping a nascent sector. “It is absurd that we are attempting to regulate the naming of products that aren’t even on the European market yet,” the Greens Parliamentary negotiator on the file, Anna Strolenberg, told POLITICO ahead of Thursday’s talks on cellular meat. “Our signal to biotech pioneers is: ‘Don’t build it in Europe, move abroad.’” The compromise comes after months of negotiations between the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission over targeted changes to the bloc’s Common Market Organisation law. The original intent was to update detailed laws on contracts, in the hopes of improving the position of farmers in the agri-food chain, following waves of protests. However, when the proposal reached the Parliament, Imart, the European People’s Party MEP leading negotiations on the file, pushed for the inclusion of a list of meaty terms that would be off-limits to veggie copycats. That quickly became the most hotly debated element, as capitals scrambled to agree on common red lines. In the end, a similar list proposed by the Commission for a future change to the CMO from 2028 onward was used as the basis of negotiations. The terms on this list were more narrow references to cuts and types of meat rather than catch-all terms like burger and sausage.

The Netherlands’ youngest prime minister, Rob Jetten, was sworn in on Monday vowing to end the paralysis and polarization that plagued the previous government, the most far-right in Dutch politics. That promised return to the Netherlands’ historical tradition of consensus politics will be a tall order for the 38-year centrist, however.  He now presides over a fragile minority government and his plans on cutting welfare and social security spending are already facing backlash across the political spectrum. With far-right parties leading the polls in France and Germany, Jetten’s victory in October was welcomed by traditional parties in Brussels because it had been touch-and-go whether voters in the EU’s fifth-biggest economy would support centrists rather than the far right.  One hundred and seventeen days of coalition building later, Jetten faces a battle to drive through an ambitious agenda that includes a massive boost to defense spending in line with NATO’s 3.5-percent core target and reducing emissions from one of Europe’s most important livestock industries. On all counts, his opponents are out to extract painful concessions at the risk of political deadlock. Consultancy Verisk Maplecroft has ranked the Netherlands as the third-most governmentally unstable country in Europe, behind Bulgaria and Moldova.  The question now is whether Jetten’s government can buck a trend that has already seen two governments collapse in four years.  KNIVES OUT FOR COALITION DEAL In its coalition agreement, Jetten’s government —  which, aside from his own centrist D66, also includes the center-right Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) and the liberal People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) —  has promised to splurge on defense and housing and reintroduce voluntary farm buyouts, while maintaining a hawkish fiscal policy. To fund the spending bonanza, it is proposing a “freedom contribution” tax on income on top of drastic cuts to welfare and social security spending. The coalition agreement also looks to continue a strict line on migration set by the previous, far-right government, and envisages accelerating previous plans to increase the pension age. The left and far right have their knives out for the agreement. GreenLeft-Labor alliance (GL-PvDA) leader Jesse Klaver said he would only support the plans in case “of a U-turn.”  Geert Wilders, who leads the far-right Freedom Party (PVV) promised to fight it “tooth and nail.”  And Socialist Party (SP) leader Jimmy Dijk went as far as saying the government blueprint constituted “a frontal attack on our civilization.”  To get anywhere, Jetten’s government will need their support. The coalition has only 66 out of 150 seats in the lower house of Dutch parliament — 10 short of a majority. In the upper house of parliament, its position is even weaker, with 22 out of 75 seats.  Jetten himself has defended the minority government as a boon to democracy because it will allow opposition parties a greater say. But some argue that presents too rosy a picture, pointing out that the last formal minority government in 1939 collapsed after only two days.  A minority government is like “driving on the wrong side of the road,” political historian Kemal Rijken told Dutch public radio. “It’s quite dangerous and risky.” Presumably, a minority government was not Jetten’s first choice, either. The logical alternative would have been to include GL-PvdA, but the VVD torpedoed that possibility, rejecting the left-wing party as too “radical.” “The problem in The Hague is that parties that should be able to work together exclude each other,” explained Simon Otjes, аn associate professor of Dutch politics at Leiden University. Another option would have been to invite the far-right JA21 party into the coalition, but that would have come at the steep price of alienating Jetten’s progressive voter base. COBBLING TOGETHER COALITIONS Jetten’s minority government might represent less of a sea-change than it might seem at first glance. Haggling for political support from unlikely allies has, in recent years, been a fixture of Dutch politics. While the last official minority government was in 1939, the liberal Mark Rutte formed a highly unorthodox arrangement in 2010 in which he relied on the support of anti-Islam firebrand Wilders. Consecutive Dutch governments have since ruled with coalitions that, at some stage during their term, were forced to make do with minority support after one of the coalition parties pulled out, or lacked a clear majority in one or other chambers of parliament, Otjes noted.  “Every coalition has needed support from opposition parties to make laws and that remains unchanged,” he said. Moreover, on several core issues, finding an agreement might not present too much of a challenge.  On migration, for example, the coalition is likely to look for, and find, support on the far-right flank. On the other hand, it is likely to turn to the GL-PvDA for support on climate and measures to cut back nitrogen emissions from farms. There’s also widespread support for its plans to boost defense spending to meet NATO targets.  Analysts point out, however, it will be much harder to get parties to agree to the far-reaching cuts to social spending, whether on the left or the far right, leaving the foundation underpinning Jetten’s plans resting on quicksand. Jetten’s own answer to bridging deep political division is humility.  In selecting his ministers, Jetten said he looked for those “who are able to listen and don’t have all too big an ego.”  But the new prime minister himself risks becoming the greatest casualty of the political tightrope exercise.  The main risk is that left-wing voters who helped him to victory in last October’s election might change their minds in light of what looks to be his government’s overwhelmingly right-wing agenda.  Jetten can celebrate today. But from Tuesday, the hunger games begin. 

Rob Jetten was sworn in as the youngest prime minister of the Netherlands on Monday but the 38-year-old centrist will face an immediate battle to push through his agenda via the country’s first minority government in decades. With far-right parties topping polls in France and Germany, Jetten’s victory in October came as a relief in Brussels as he is pledging to steer the EU’s fifth biggest economy in a resolutely pro-European direction. Jetten takes office 117 days after last year’s general election and is also the first openly gay Dutch leader. He succeeds Dick Schoof, whose government collapsed in the summer of 2025, triggering snap elections. Jetten’s party scored a narrow victory over the far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) led by Geert Wilders. Jetten now leads a coalition made up of his own Democrats 66 (D66), the center-right Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) and the liberal People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD). Together, the three parties control just 66 of the 150 seats in parliament meaning that the new prime minister will depend on opposition support from day one. His government is planning a big splurge on defense, pouring billions more euros into the military to reach the NATO spending target of 5 percent of gross domestic product. Jetten’s government will also press ahead with closely watched plans to slash back emissions from the Netherlands’ massive livestock industry. Even before being his officially start, the incoming coalition ran into problems last week when the nominated state secretary for finance from Jetten’s own D66 party, resigned over misrepresentations of her education on her CV and LinkedIn profile. 

ATHENS — Greek farmers are begging for vaccines to save their flocks from sheep pox, and Brussels is offering them for free. But the Athens government doesn’t want them, preferring to cull infected animals. That’s all very bad news for feta cheese fans. Sheep pox is so infectious that global farming regulations require whole herds to be slaughtered immediately after even a single case is detected. Since the first case emerged in a northern region of Greece in 2024, authorities have culled more than 470,000 sheep and goats and closed some 2,500 farms nationwide. The country’s livestock breeding industry is now on the verge of collapse — endangering the trademark white cheese, into which producers pour 80 percent of the country’s sheep and goat milk. “If there is no immediate response, feta cheese will become a luxury item,” said Vaso Fasoula, a sheep farmer in Greece’s agricultural heartland of Thessaly, who has confined her 2,500 sheep to protect them from the contagion. An alternative to all this killing: vaccines, available free from Brussels. “Vaccination is the only additional measure that can stop the occurrence of new outbreaks, limit further spread to the rest of Greece and reduce the number of animals to be killed,” wrote Animal Welfare Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi to Athens last year. Yet the government has repeatedly rejected this option, citing the steep financial consequences and damage to exports. That refusal to embrace wide-scale prevention measures has infuriated farmers and is fueling further tensions with Brussels over an agriculture subsidy scandal — all while putting one of Greece’s most famous exports at risk. Farmers and livestock breeders have been blocking national highways all over the country for the last 40 days in one of the biggest mobilizations the country has experienced in recent years. Mass vaccination is among their demands, and they have said they won’t leave the roadblocks until the vaccination campaign starts. Behind the government’s refusal to vaccinate, critics allege, are not only misguided priorities but also a corruption cover-up. ANTI-VAX Sheep pox vaccines would be free, but they would nonetheless come at a high cost. Greek Agriculture Minister Konstantinos Tsiaras said a nationwide vaccine initiative would see Greece classified as a country where sheep pox is endemic. That could jeopardize exports, given the desperation of other countries to keep the bug beyond their borders. “Our scientists are clear,” Tsiaras said in October. “They do not recommend vaccination. Farmers are in a difficult position, but we cannot do anything other than follow the scientific guidance.” While a sheep pox declaration means restrictions on exporting animals — the virus can live in wool for up to six months — shipments of treated milk products like feta cheese would be less affected. Τhe trademark salty, white, crumbly delight — a protected designation of origin within the EU — is a major economic driver. Greece produces over 97,000 tons of feta annually, more than two-thirds of which is exported. The country netted a record €785 million from feta sales in 2024. Livestock breeders say the price of feta cheese has already increased significantly and will rise even further in the spring when the shortage becomes apparent. (The feta cheese currently on the market has been produced from milk from previous months.) Yet the government is standing firm against livestock jabs. “There is no approved vaccine in Greece,” said Charalampos Billinis, rector at the University of Thessaly and a member of the government’s national scientific committee for the management and control of sheep pox. “And there is no approved vaccine in the European Union.” That’s true — but it doesn’t mean there’s no safe, effective inoculation against sheep pox. Because the disease has not circulated in the EU for decades, manufacturers have not asked the European Medicines Agency to greenlight a vaccine. “This is a standard situation for animal diseases not usually present in the EU,” a Commission spokesperson said in an email. “No manufacturer has economic interest in obtaining marketing authorisation as they do not expect specific diseases to spread.” That’s why EU legislation offers a path for member countries to use vaccines that are approved in other parts of the world when animal diseases re-appear in the bloc, the spokesperson said. Plenty of doses of just such vaccines are available in EU stockpiles, and Brussels is urging Greece to repeat its success from the 1980s, when it used the vaccine to shut down a sheep pox outbreak. “Experience, science and veterinary expertise further support the need to revert to vaccination in Greece now,” Várhelyi wrote to the government in October in a letter seen by POLITICO. That’s where a fundamental disagreement arises. As Billinis argued, exposing the animals to the virus via the vaccine would increase positive testing rates, further prolonging trade restrictions, when the virus can still be contained in other ways. Farmers don’t buy it. “This disease is not leaving Greece; it has come to stay and without the vaccine, it will not go away,” said George Terzakis, president of a local livestock association in Thessaly. He’s among the breeders who allege the government’s vaccine skepticism isn’t so much about science as their desire to hide the full implications of a snowballing farm scandal. The European Public Prosecutor’s Office is pursuing dozens of cases in which Greeks allegedly received agricultural funds from the EU for pastureland they did not own or lease, or for animals they did not own, depriving legitimate farmers and livestock breeders of the funds they deserved. POLITICO first reported on the scheme in February. “If our animals were vaccinated, the number of doses used would reveal the country’s real animal population,” Terzakis said. “Everything is being done because of the scandal.” When asked about the allegation, government spokesperson Pavlos Marinakis said Athens had “faithfully followed European directives, which are the result of all the recommendations that, at the end of the day, led to specific decisions.” FLOODS AND PLAGUES As the infection spreads, families who have lived with their sheep and goats for generations are watching them vanish in a day, buried in large pits — many times on their land. Some have turned to illegal vaccination. The government estimates that one million illegal doses have been used, distorting epidemiological data. The broader region of Thessaly, which produces a quarter of the country’s food, was hit by devastating floods in 2023, followed the next year by an outbreak of sheep and goat plague and then sheep pox. “The disease spread like wildfire. We didn’t have any time to react,” said Dimitris Papaziakas, a breeder from a village close to Larissa city in central Greece and president of an association of livestock farmers affected by smallpox and plague. In mid-November he had to watch his 350 sheep be culled and then buried outside his sheep pen. “I cannot recall that day without starting to cry all over again,” he said. In one village, Koulouri, only one out of 10 units remains operational. Fasoula, the sheep farmer who penned her 2,500 sheep in May, is still keeping the infection at bay in nearby Amfithea. She constantly disinfects the cars and everything else on the farm, hoping for the best. But she’s concerned about how the animals were buried along the banks of a river. “If there is another flood, everything that has been buried will come to the surface.”

BRUSSELS — Spanish center-right lawmakers have quietly pulled back from their once-robust public support for the EU–Mercosur trade deal, sending jitters through the European People’s Party as backers warn the agreement could now be in serious trouble. The mammoth trade deal, which has been in the making for 25 years, will be formally sealed when European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen flies to Paraguay on Saturday to sign it. But the accord still requires a formal green light from the European Parliament before it can enter into force. The shift by the Spanish center right will deliver a first test for the Mercosur accord by as early as next week. MEPs are due to vote on Wednesday on motions calling to refer the text to the Court of Justice of the European Union to review whether it complies with the bloc’s treaties — a process that could take up to two years. Only if the deal receives the necessary backing would it then go forward for a consent vote later this year, where a majority would again be needed for it to go into effect. With support breaking along national, rather than party lines, a defection by the Spanish center right threatens to turn next week into a cliffhanger. Spanish People’s Party (PP) president, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, telegraphed the shift in position at a party rally last weekend, when he declared Spain’s “farmers are right.” His statement reflected broader concerns that farmers could be undercut by an influx of produce from the South American bloc. While stopping short of rejecting the deal outright, Feijóo said Spanish farmers were right to demand “more control over what comes from abroad,” and “fair trade agreements with guarantees — guarantees that will be honored.” “We are the party of the countryside, the party of farmers,” Feijóo added. “The one that defends them, the one that listens to them, and the one that makes real policy for them.” Alberto Nadal, the PP’s vice-secretary for economic affairs, was more explicit in a post on X in which he said the party will “only support the EU-Mercosur agreement if safeguards are guaranteed and border controls are strengthened.” The PP’s press departments in Brussels and Madrid did not respond to repeated requests to clarify what these statements mean for the party’s voting intentions in the European Parliament. Direct requests for comment to the party’s top EU lawmakers went similarly unanswered. SPANISH PIVOT The pivot from the Spanish lawmakers, traditionally the staunchest supporters of deepening ties with Latin America, reflects the sky-high pressure building upon the European Parliament.  In the Parliament’s hallways, EPP lawmakers from other countries have noticed the shift. “We always thought they were rock solid, but then lately there was some nervousness,” said one senior MEP, who was granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive situation. They added that the Spaniards had not expressed themselves directly to the group yet but expressed confidence they will ultimately support the deal. “It seems they have a heated internal debate ongoing,” one EPP official said. “Members of the group are feeling the heat of farmers and the Spaniards have three elections upcoming.” French, Polish, and Austrian center-right lawmakers are opposed to the deal over concerns it will hurt farmers.  A second center-right MEP warned that a Spanish rejection of the deal “would be the end” of Mercosur, adding that Madrid’s backing is as instrumental as that of Germany’s, which both countries described as the “motor” of the agreement. Were they to turn against the deal, the Spaniards — who are the second biggest national delegation within the EPP, with 22 seats in the hemicycle — could blow the deal as a whole. The vote is expected to be tight, with four Parliament officials from the EPP, S&D, and Renew groups agreeing the result will be “50-50,” with a margin of just a few votes.  DOMESTIC PRESSURES The PP’s doubts about the Mercosur deal are driven by electoral considerations at home. Regional elections are set to be held in Aragón on Feb. 8, in Castille and León on March 15, and in Andalucía later this spring, and the rural vote is decisive. The Aragonese economy depends on livestock,  Castille and León is Spain’s breadbasket and Andalucía is the country’s largest agricultural producer. Ever since Brussels announced the Mercosur deal, farmers and ranchers in all three regions have taken part in major protests, and even larger mobilizations are planned for the coming weeks. The far-right Vox party — which is already the third-largest group in the Spanish parliament, and which continues to grow in the polls — is actively campaigning against the agreement, which it argues “turns its back on thousands of Spanish producers [by allowing]  the massive influx of foreign products.” It is also using the issue to characterize the PP as a mainstream political force that is virtually identical to the governing Socialist Party, and that does not fight for the interests of average voters. That’s a big problem for the PP, which is desperate to score governing majorities in Aragón, Castille and León, and Andalucía and deal fresh defeats to Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s weak minority government. Spain’s left-wing coalition is in dire straits, lacking sufficient support to pass legislation or a fresh budget, and there are doubts that it will remain in power until national elections scheduled to be held in July 2027. Major Socialist losses in Aragón, Castille and León, and Andalucía would increase pressure on Sánchez to call snap elections, but the PP is itself under pressure to score decisive majority wins in both regions. The party is wary of having to form coalition governments with Vox, as it did in the Balearic Islands, Extremadura, Aragon, Valencia and Murcia following nationwide regional elections in 2023. That summer, that partnership became a major liability when Sánchez called snap elections and based his successful campaign on the fear that a vote for the PP amounted to a vote for a far-right national government. Aitor Hernández-Morales reported from Madrid.

Officially, the EU’s Mercosur trade deal is a defeat for Europe’s farmers. In reality, farm lobbies just can’t stop winning. EU countries endorsed the bloc’s long-delayed agreement with South American nations on Friday, clearing the way for European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to fly to Paraguay later this week and close a deal that has haunted Brussels for more than two decades. The agreement is going through despite tractor protests, border blockades and fierce opposition from farm groups and capitals including Paris and Warsaw. But the price of getting Mercosur over the line was steep. In the run-up to the endorsement, Brussels quietly stacked the deck in farmers’ favor. Import safeguards were hardened. Controls tightened. And last week, the Commission unveiled a €45 billion budget maneuver allowing governments to shift more money to farmers under the EU’s next long-term budget. Taken together, the concessions mean Mercosur will enter into force wrapped in protections and paired with a farm budget settlement that leaves the sector stronger than before. “Other sectors complain,” said one Commission official involved in agricultural policy. “Farmers block roads.” The official, like others in this story, was granted anonymity to speak freely. The blunt assessment captures a familiar reality inside the EU institutions. Farmers may represent a shrinking share of Europe’s economy, but they remain one of its most powerful political constituencies, capable of reshaping trade deals, budgets and reform agendas even when they fail to block them outright. Ultimately, to get Mercosur over the line, Brussels had to back away from plans to loosen farmers’ grip on the EU budget and shift money to other priorities. PRESSURE THAT WORKS The leverage farm leaders wield rests on more than theatrics. Few officials in Brussels dispute that large parts of the sector are under real strain. Farm incomes are volatile. Costs for fuel, fertilizer and feed have surged. Weather has become harder to predict. Working days are long and isolation is common in hollowing rural communities. “I understand the anger,” Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen told POLITICO in an interview last month, as Brussels prepared for tractors to roll into the EU quarter. Christophe Hansen said the Commission had “heard the concerns of farmers” and responded with “strong and unprecedented support measures.” | Photo by Omar Havana/Getty Images Sympathy for farmers runs high across much of Europe, tied not just to economics but to culture, place and identity. That has always made farm subsidies one of the most politically sensitive lines in the EU budget — and one the Commission knew would be hardest to touch. That sensitivity was on display again last week, when agriculture ministers traveled to Brussels for a hastily convened meeting outside the formal calendar, called in response to farmer protests only weeks earlier. Inside, the language was ritualistic. Praise for farmers. Assurances they were being listened to. Repeated references to unprecedented safeguards and financial backing. Hansen summed it up afterward, saying the Commission had “heard the concerns of farmers” and responded with “strong and unprecedented support measures.” REFORM MEETS REALITY This outcome marks a sharp reversal of earlier ambitions inside the Commission. It’s also a reminder of just how high the stakes are when farm subsidies are in play. The Common Agricultural Policy remains the single largest line in the EU budget, absorbing roughly a third of total spending and anchoring a political contract that dates back to the bloc’s postwar foundations. Public money, in exchange for food security and rural stability, has long been one of Europe’s core bargains. That bargain has survived decades of reform. The CAP has been trimmed, greened and made more market-oriented. But its central promise — that farming would be protected — has never disappeared. After von der Leyen’s re-election in 2024, officials quietly explored loosening how tightly farm spending is locked into the EU budget. Draft ideas for the post-2027 budget would have made farm funds more flexible and easier to redirect to priorities such as defense, climate transition or industrial policy. It was a technocrat’s answer to a crowded budget. It did not survive contact with politics. The proposal landed as farm incomes came under pressure from rising costs, climate volatility and disease outbreaks. Tractors returned to Europe’s streets. Agriculture ministers closed ranks, warning of political fallout in rural heartlands. Farm lobbies mobilized in force. Hansen spent much of his first year in office traveling to farms and meeting unions, describing agriculture as a strategic asset and warning of a “convergence of pressures” hitting the sector. Behind closed doors, he fought to keep large chunks of farm funding protected. Tractors park in front of the Arc de Triomphe during a demonstration of the French agricultural union Coordination Rurale (CR) in Paris, France, on January 8, 2026. | Jerome Gilles/NurPhoto via Getty Images Those efforts didn’t calm farmers’ anger. Instead, pressure became constant, feeding into a series of concessions that steadily narrowed the scope for reform. First came assurances that most farm spending would remain ring-fenced in the post-2027 budget. Then came a new rural spending target, designed to funnel more money back into countryside projects. Last week, to get the Mercosur deal over the line, the Commission went further, proposing that farmers get early access to up to €45 billion from a broader cash pot the EU would have been saving for a rainy day. In effect, much of the post-2027 EU farm budget is on track to be sealed at levels approaching today’s, before negotiations have even begun in earnest. LOSING THE TRADE FIGHT, WINNING THE POLITICS The €45 billion now being front-loaded was originally conceived as crisis insurance. After the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Brussels concluded that future EU budgets needed more flexibility to respond quickly to shocks. Money reserved for incremental spending reviews was meant to be the first line of defense in the next crisis. If national capitals embrace the Commission’s proposal, much of that money would be locked in for farmers before the cycle even starts, leaving less for other priority areas. Mercosur became the perfect vehicle for that pressure. Long championed by industrial exporters, the deal turned into shorthand for everything farmers fear about global competition and loss of control. The reality is more uneven. Some EU farmers, particularly in high-end food, wine and dairy, stand to gain from better access to Mercosur markets. Others, especially in beef and poultry, face tougher competition. Yet even there, trade analysts have long dismissed fears of South American goods flooding the EU as exaggerated. But nuance rarely survives a protest banner, and even the unprecedented concessions haven’t stopped farmers from protesting. The EU’s largest farm lobby, Copa-Cogeca, said Friday that the process of getting the Mercosur deal across the line “erodes trust in European governance, democratic processes and parliamentary scrutiny at a time when institutional credibility is already under strain.” The group said it would continue mobilizing farmers. Privately, Commission officials express frustration about the farm lobbies’ hardening demands.  One said that even though Brussels bends over backwards to meet farmers’ demands, every concession still falls short for farm leaders. Another pointed to Commissioner Hansen’s efforts to engage in direct dialogue with farmers across the EU. “And still, they talk as if we had done nothing,” the official said, referring directly to Copa-Cogeca. For now, farm leaders are winning.  Von der Leyen might be boarding that plane to South America. But when she returns to Brussels, they will already be gearing up for the next fight, confident they can lose the trade battle and still bend Europe’s policy in their favor.

Brussels is about to get another reminder that tractors don’t run on promises. Despite a flood of legislative goodies and concessions, some 10,000 farmers from all 27 EU countries are expected to descend on the EU quarter for what the bloc’s main farm lobby Copa-Cogeca says will be the biggest farm protests Brussels has seen this century. Tractors are expected. Speeches are planned. As for manure or burning hay? That, apparently, depends on who shows up. “We’ve told everyone to behave,” said Peter Meedendorp, the head of Europe’s young farmers group CEJA. “But maybe the group from northern France — they are more radical — we can’t say what they’ll do.” Even the EU’s agriculture commissioner admits the protest defies a single explanation. Some farmers are coming over trade. Others over the next EU budget. Others over animal diseases or green rules.  “It’s difficult to say they are coming for one or the other reason,” Christophe Hansen told POLITICO. “There are several reasons — and they are not the same depending on where the farmers are coming from.” That helps explain why farmers are back in Brussels — again — even as the European Commission insists it has bent over backward to meet their demands. From shielding farm payments in the next EU budget, to rewriting pesticide rules and slowing down trade deals, Brussels says it’s trying. Farmers say it’s still not enough. Below, we break down the main grievances driving Thursday’s march — and rate both the EU’s response and the farmers’ level of anger using our highly scientific pen-and-poop scale: Five pens for a robust policy response; a five-manure rating for peak anger.  BUDGET ANXIETY The complaint: Farmers fear their slice of the EU budget will be trimmed to fund other priorities. EU answer: Keeping roughly €300 billion in EU payments flowing to farmers after 2027. Policy response rating: Tough manure rating: As Brussels braces for a brutal fight over the next EU budget, agriculture has — for the most part — escaped the axe. While other policy areas are being told to expect trade-offs, farming has won rare protections. Hansen has locked in long-term guarantees for direct payments to farmers and added new targets aimed at keeping rural areas economically viable, just months after the proposal was unveiled. Officials note no other sector enjoys that kind of treatment. It didn’t come easily. The Commission’s budget officials had eyed agriculture as one of the few pots big enough to help bankroll other, more strategic priorities. Hansen drew the line. Farmers, however, say that after decades of the Common Agricultural Policy being a given, guarantees on paper don’t settle what their share of the EU budget will look like once negotiations begin in earnest. TRADE TENSIONS The complaint: Free-trade deals flooding the EU market with unfair foreign competition.  EU answer: Refusing to adopt the Mercosur trade agreement until backstops are inked into law — potentially delaying the whole deal. Policy response rating: Tough manure rating: The Commission is determined to sign a deal with the Mercosur countries by the end of the year that would make it easier for a limited amount of beef, poultry and other agricultural goods to enter the bloc. That’s sparking outrage among farmers in major producing countries like France and Poland. The EU is in the process of finalizing “safeguard” measures to protect these sectors that could be activated if prices or import volumes change drastically as a result of the agreement — but farmers aren’t convinced.  “It’s the cumulative effect,” said Francie Gorman, president of the Irish Farmers’ Association who is driving his tractor to Brussels all the way from Dublin. “Every time a trade deal is done, it seems to us like farming becomes a bargaining chip and that farmers are sold out.” Sure enough, the farmers’ trade demands go beyond stopping the Mercosur agreement. They want other trading partners to be forced to meet EU production standards to export their products to the bloc, and are calling for “balanced” imports from Ukraine to avoid undercutting producers within the bloc. ENVIRONMENTAL RULES The complaint: EU regulations make life more difficult for Europeans farmers, especially compared with the competition abroad. EU answer: Environment tape-cutting and new rules making it easier to access pesticides in Europe and harder to use them abroad. Policy response rating: Tough manure rating: No one can say the Commission isn’t trying to win over farmers on pesticides. Over the past week, they’ve announced bills that would introduce unlimited approvals for many pesticides and give farmers an extra year to phase out toxic substances. “I appreciate they are making necessary steps,” said Meedendorp, conceding that yes, on some issues, the Commission is doubling over backward to appease farm groups. But “being happy on one file … doesn’t mean we don’t have other problems.” A slew of proposals on trade, particularly a plan that would essentially force farmers in third countries to stop using pesticides banned in the EU, are also a play to even the field for European farmers.  Those too are welcome, though farmers are skeptical that border checks will actually stop imports of, say, Brazilian sugar beets grown with neonicotinoids.  And they argue the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism for fertilizers, set to go into force on Jan. 1, should be postponed because of its “drastic impact” on fertilizer prices.  Other Commission efforts have fallen flat. The farm lobby Copa-Cogeca dismissed a recent environmental simplification bill as only “cosmetic changes.” NATIONAL GRIEVANCES  The complaint: In France, par exemple, they’re culling the cows to fight the spread of disease.  EU answer: Paris is responding to lumpy skin disease by taking an even harder line against Mercosur. Policy response rating: Tough manure rating: French farmers are among the fiercest opponents of Mercosur. But like most in the tractor convoy, they’ve got plenty of ire for their own capital.  Paris is fighting the spread of lumpy skin disease, a cattle plague that spreads rapidly and causes major production losses, by mandating the systematic culling of infected herds. In opposition to that protocol, several French farmers — who argue that only infected animals, not entire herds, should be culled — have once again begun blocking highways with their tractors to draw public attention. The movement has been driven by the hard-line Coordination Rurale, the country’s second-largest farmers’ union, which is often associated with the far right. The largest union, the FNSEA, has also warned that protests would become “much more significant” if the Mercosur trade deal is signed. Wary of a prolonged standoff with a profession that enjoys broad public sympathy, the government has sought to show it is working around the clock to bring the situation under control. In addition to pushing to postpone Mercosur, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu is holding daily meetings to address the lumpy skin disease outbreak and has made the rapid delivery of vaccines to farms across France a top priority. GENERAL DISCONTENT  The complaint: It’s a hard life for farmers and EU is making it worse EU answer: Sympathy, simplification pledges and tweaks around the edges. Policy response rating: Tough manure rating: For many farmers, Thursday’s protest isn’t really about one regulation or one trade deal. It’s about everything. It’s about 14-hour days, seven days a week. About animals that don’t care if it’s a weekend or a holiday. About paperwork done late at night, after the milking is finished, written in a language that can feel like it comes from another planet. About being told to “diversify” or “innovate” while barely breaking even. It’s about isolation. Rural communities emptying out. Neighbors retiring with no one to take over. Mental health strains that Brussels rarely talks about — and struggles farmers say few outsiders understand. It’s also about money. Farmers are price-takers in global markets they don’t control, squeezed between supermarket buying power, volatile commodity prices and rising costs for fuel, fertilizer and feed. When prices spike, the gains rarely reach the farm. When they crash, farmers absorb the hit. Then come the animal diseases. The forced culls. The climate blame. And the feeling that decisions shaping livelihoods are taken far away, by people who have never set foot in a barn. That anger hardens into resentment. This is the one grievance Brussels can’t legislate away. And it’s why, even when the Commission bends, farmers keep coming back.

BRUSSELS — The European Commission has proposed rolling back several EU environmental laws including industrial emissions reporting requirements, confirming previous reporting by POLITICO. It’s the latest in a series of proposed deregulation plans — known as omnibus bills — as Commission President Ursula von der Leyen tries to make good on a promise to EU leaders to dramatically reduce administrative burden for companies.   The bill’s aim is to make it easier for businesses to comply with EU laws on waste management, emissions, and resource use, with the Commission stressing the benefits to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) which make up 99 percent of all EU businesses. The Commission insisted the rollbacks would not have a negative impact on the environment. “We all agree that we need to protect our environmental standards, but we also at the same time need to do it more efficiently,” said Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall during a press conference on Wednesday.  “This is a complex exercise,” said Executive Vice President Teresa Ribera during a press conference on Wednesday. “It is not easy for anyone to try to identify how we can respond to this demand to simplify while responding to this other demand to keep these [environmental] standards high.”  Like previous omnibus packages, the environmental omnibus was released without an impact assessment. The Commission found that “without considering other alternative options, an impact assessment is not deemed necessary.” This comes right after the Ombudswoman found the Commission at fault for “maladministration” for the first omnibus.   The Commission claims “the proposed amendments will not affect environmental standards” — a claim that’s already under attack from environmental groups.   MORE REPORTING CUTS  The Commission wants to exempt livestock and aquaculture operators from reporting on water, energy and materials use under the industrial emissions reporting legislation.  EU countries, competent authorities and operators would also be given more time to comply with some of the new or revised provisions in the updated Industrial Emissions Directive while being given further “clarity on when these provisions apply.”  The Commission is also proposing “significant simplification” for environmental management systems (EMS) — which lay out goals and performance measures related to environmental impacts of an industrial site — under the industrial and livestock rearing emissions directive.  These would be completed by industrial plants at the level of a company and not at the level of every installation, as it currently stands.   There would also be fewer compliance obligations under EU waste laws.   The Commission wants to remove the Substances of Concern in Products (SCIP) database, for example, claiming that it “has not been effective in informing recyclers about the presence of hazardous substances in products and has imposed substantial administrative costs.”  Producers selling goods in another EU country will also not have to appoint an authorized representative in both countries to comply with extended producer responsibility (EPR). The Commission calls it a “stepping stone to more profound simplification,” also reducing reporting requirements to just once per year.  The Commission will not be changing the Nature Restoration Regulation — which has been a key question in discussions between EU commissioners — but it will intensify its support to EU countries and regional authorities in preparing their draft National Restoration Plans.  The Commission will stress-test the Birds and Habitats Directives in 2026 “taking into account climate change, food security, and other developments and present a series of guidelines to facilitate implementation,” it said.  CRITIQUES ROLL IN   Some industry groups, like the Computer & Communications Industry Association, have welcomed the changes, calling it a “a common-sense fix.” German center-right MEP Pieter Liese also welcomed the omnibus package, saying, “[W]e need to streamline environmental laws precisely because we want to preserve them. Bureaucracy and paperwork are not environmental protection.” But environmental groups opposed the rollbacks.  “The Von der Leyen Commission is dismantling decades of hard-won nature protections, putting air, water, and public health at risk in the name of competitiveness,” WWF said in a statement. The estimated savings “come with no impact assessment and focus only on reduced compliance costs, ignoring the far larger price of pollution, ecosystem decline, and climate-related disasters,” it added.   The Industrial Emissions Directive, which entered into force last year and is already being transposed by member countries, was “already much weaker than what the European Commission had originally proposed” during the last revision, pointed out ClientEarth lawyer Selin Esen.  “The Birds and Habitats Directives are the backbone of nature protection in Europe,” said BirdLife Europe’s Sofie Ruysschaert. “Undermining them now would not only wipe out decades of hard-won progress but also push the EU toward a future where ecosystems and the communities that rely on them are left dangerously exposed.”