Undecided lawmakers in the European Parliament will make or break a deal to create the world’s largest free trade area, according to a POLITICO analysis of voting intentions. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa signed a long-awaited trade deal with Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay amid fanfare last weekend. The Mercosur trade agreement, 25 years in the making, covers 700 million people, and Brussels considers it a key strategic tool for the EU to strengthen trade ties with Latin America as relations with both the United States and China deteriorate. But the mega-deal must still win the approval of the European Parliament before it can enter into force. POLITICO reporters reached out to party groups and individual lawmakers and ascertained the voting intentions of 673 of the Parliament’s 719 MEPs. The findings put the deal at risk of running aground. At least 301 of those lawmakers are expected to oppose the Mercosur deal if and when it lands in the Parliament, while 319 MEPs would support it. It’s a tally that undecided and undeclared lawmakers could easily swing. CRITICAL TEST It’s a pivotal moment for the trade agreement.  The Parliament isn’t due to vote on the deal itself for months, potentially not until May. But on Wednesday, lawmakers will decide whether to send the deal’s text for legal review to the EU’s court of justice.  The process would kick the can down the road by up to two years. This vote is effectively a dry run of where the majority would stand on final approval. Many of the lawmakers who support the deal are expected to reject sending it to court. However, that is not the case for some: The 12 German Green lawmakers, for example, are in favor of the deal but also support sending it to court to assess its legality — making Wednesday’s vote even tighter.  In the Council of the EU, the bloc’s intergovernmental branch, the agreement won a qualified majority despite the opposition of France, Poland, Austria, Ireland and Hungary. Belgium abstained; Italy only backed the deal after securing safeguards and funding commitments for its farmers. A Parliament vote against the deal would deal a massive blow to Brussels and the pro-deal camp led by Germany. “We must not let this opportunity go to waste,” Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said last week, calling on the European Parliament to back the deal. “We need not talk any further about European sovereignty or Europe’s ability to act if we do not succeed in bringing such free trade agreements to a positive conclusion.”  INTERNAL RIFTS Opposition in Parliament comes from different corners: Lawmakers from the far-right Patriots for Europe and Left groups are expected to vote against the deal. Other political groups are divided. Even within the ranks of von der Leyen’s own European People’s Party, one-fifth of lawmakers are expected to vote against the Mercosur text. There are also rifts within the liberal Renew group and the Greens, while POLITICO’s analysis shows the trade deal dividing the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists down the middle. A big question mark hangs over the Spanish delegation within the EPP. With their 22 lawmakers, they were earlier seen as one of the main promoters of the deal. But pressure from farmers opposed to Mercosur ahead of regional election races has cast doubt over whether they will stay in the pro-deal camp. Senior EPP officials are still counting on their support despite the last-minute wobbles. Reporting by Hanne Cokelaere, Max Griera, Lucia Mackenzie, Camille Gijs, Bartosz Brzeziński, Carlo Martuscelli, Koen Verhelst, Gerardo Fortuna, Nette Nöstlinger, Pieter Haeck and Eliza Gkritski.

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.”

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 — Ursula von der Leyen wanted her next EU budget to have a rainy-day fund in case of war, pandemic or competition from other world powers. Instead, the European Commission president is already raiding it to pay off farmers and nail down the Mercosur trade deal. National leaders — including those of Mercosur holdouts France and Italy — have rushed to claim credit for the offer to free up €45 billion for Common Agricultural Policy spending years ahead of schedule. Budget analysts and diplomats, however, called it a major step back from the Commission chief’s initial ambition to help the bloc spend more nimbly in response to global chaos. The concession is part of an attempt to make the EU-Mercosur deal palatable for the bloc’s farmers, who fear their products will be undercut by Latin American exports. The sense of urgency was on full display Wednesday as agriculture ministers made their way to Brussels through snowfall and travel disruption for an extraordinary meeting called in response to last month’s farmer protest in the EU capital. Inside, the exchanges followed a familiar script. Praise for farmers was paired with assurances they had been heard, alongside repeated references to safeguards, support measures and flexibility built into the EU’s draft budget. Yet farmers, in early reactions, seemed less than impressed. In a statement, the Irish Farmers Association said von der Leyen’s proposal “smacks of desperation.” TRADING AWAY THE BUDGET The European Commission’s additional money for farmers isn’t new — it’s been brought forward from an existing rainy day fund in the EU budget proposal, which is still being negotiated and will only come into force in 2028. The Commission set aside a financial buffer to tackle unforeseen emergencies during the mid-term review of the budget in 2030 in an attempt to make the EU’s common cash pot less rigid than it currently is. In order to lock in France and Italy’s support for the Mercosur trade deal, the Commission on Tuesday offered countries the possibility of immediately handing over €45 billion from that cash pot to farmers. Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič said after the ministers’ meeting that the concessions were part of a broader effort to secure backing for the Mercosur deal, which he described as “the biggest free-trade agreement we have negotiated.” Brussels, he added, had gone “further than ever before” with safeguards to address agriculture fears. “We listened to the concerns of farmers and rural communities, and we acted,” Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen said, arguing that the proposed €45 billion could be mobilized as soon as the next EU budget begins in 2028. While this will significantly increase the EU’s agricultural funding in the short term, it will empty the EU’s crisis fund further down the line. “Farmers are taking all the remaining flexibility in the budget,” said Eulalia Rubio, a senior fellow at the Jacques Delors Center think tank, noting that it will eat up EU spending on other areas.  The Commission is showing “its willingness to accept that member states use all flexibility in favor of agriculture [and] not in favor of cohesion [funding to poorer regions]” or other priorities, she said. In a further concession to farmers, the Commission also pointed to a vaguely defined “rural target” worth €48 billion, floated late last year to keep the European Parliament on side during budget talks, as a pot that could be used first and foremost for agriculture. “This comes at the expense of one of the key features of the reform — flexibility,” said an EU diplomat.  Ultimately, without new funding pots, farmers don’t see much to cheer at this point. | Tobias Canales/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images CLAMORING FOR CREDIT Von der Leyen could be encouraged by the initial reactions from capitals: National leaders claimed victory, presenting it as a trophy they had personally scored for their farmers. French President Emmanuel Macron credited his “constant commitment to [France’s] farmers” for the win, while Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said it “shows Greece’s voice in Europe is heard more loudly and more clearly.”  And with Rome set to cast the tie-breaking vote on a Mercosur measure Friday, Italian Agriculture Minister Francesco Lollobrigida called the “good news” evidence of “the seriousness of the work carried out by Italy.” Not all ministers were quite so quick to celebrate. Speaking after the extraordinary meeting, Spanish Agriculture Minister Luis Planas described the €45 billion offer as “an interesting and important step forward,” but added that, evidently, discussions on the future CAP were far from over.  Farm lobbyists were more guarded in their praise, however. For Luc Vernet, secretary-general at Farm Europe, the move is “potentially an improvement.”  Vernet zeroed in on the fact that von der Leyen’s offers are merely optional for capitals, “not an obligation” to hand over the cash to farmers. In his view that could lead to disparate outcomes around the bloc, depending on the success that farmers enjoy in negotiating with their governments, “further undermining the C [Common] of the CAP.” Ultimately, without new funding pots, farmers don’t see much to cheer at this point.  “Bringing forward €45bn that has already been promised to Member States isn’t the same as an additional €45bn,” said the Irish Farmers Association. Nektaria Stamouli contributed reporting from Athens.  This article has been updated.

BRUSSELS — Farmers toppled the Christmas tree in front of the European Parliament and replaced it with a pyre of burning tires and debris, just meters from where EU leaders were debating key issues for the bloc on Thursday. While some of the tractors featured Christmas lights and cheerfully blasted video game theme songs and pop tunes through their horns, police struggled to contain rowdier outbursts at Place du Luxembourg. The EU Quarter was thick with smoke as authorities resorted to tear gas to disperse demonstrators throughout the day.  While only a portion of protesters turned violent, even peaceful participants had harsh words for EU leaders: “We take it for granted that food will be just produced. Farmers can’t continue to produce making a loss,” said Alice Doyle, a beef and tillage farmer from Wexford, Ireland.  The literal explosion of discontent is months in the making. In the summer, the European Commission presented its revamped agricultural budget, with a new structure and a lower guaranteed spend on farming. The Commission insists the new headline figure of almost €300 billion is a minimum spend, but farmers aren’t convinced. Farm lobbyists expected planters and ranchers from all 27 EU countries to gather in Brussels for the largest mobilization this century, coinciding with a high-stakes summit of the European Council. In front of barriers protecting the European Parliament, piles of potatoes lay scattered after being thrown toward police officers, according to Belgian media. As Polish farmers threw deafening firecrackers at the European Parliament building, officials emailed staff advising them to stay away from windows while police were “managing the situation.” While only a portion of protesters turned violent, even peaceful participants had harsh words for EU leaders. | Ferdinand Knapp/POLITICO The Commission’s push to ratify the Mercosur agreement, which beef and poultry farmers view as a threat to their businesses, added fuel to the fire as the end of the year approached. Combine that with long-standing complaints of Brussels bureaucracy, low incomes and national issues, and you get thousands of farmers on the European capitals’ streets. “I’d like EU leaders to recognize agriculture as an essential value of Europe” said Máxime, a farmer wearing a T-shirt of the French farmers’ association FNSEA. As Place du Luxembourg filled with smoke, police blasted tear gas into the crowd before he could give his last name. “We need to protect it to ensure that our farmers can make a decent living and ensure that they are not faced with international competition which doesn’t play by the same rules,” he added. Copa-Cogeca, the EU’s largest farm lobby and formal organizer of the demonstration, sought to distance themselves from the destruction at Place du Luxembourg, noting that their official rallies took place in other parts of the European Quarter peacefully.  “I don’t know who they are or what they are but it’s disappointing because it takes away from the cause and it detracts from the reason we’re here,” said Doyle, who is also deputy president of the Irish Farmers Association, which participated in the more formal protest. Ferdinand Knapp contributed to this report.

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.

Laurence Tubiana is the CEO of the European Climate Foundation, France’s climate change ambassador, and COP30 special envoy for Europe. Manuel Pulgar-Vidal the World Wildlife Fund’s global climate and energy lead and was COP20 president. Anne Hidalgo is the mayor of Paris. Eduardo Paes is the mayor of Rio de Janeiro. In April, former U.K. prime minister Tony Blair wrote that our net zero policies are “doomed to fail.” This narrative — that the world is losing faith in climate action — has gained a lot of traction. But it is simply not true. Across the world, strong and stable majorities continue to back ambitious climate policies. In most countries, more than 80 percent of citizens support action, and according to research published in “Nature Climate Change,” 69 percent of people globally say they’re willing to contribute 1 percent of their income to help tackle the climate crisis. The problem isn’t a collapse in public support — it is the growing disconnect between people and politics, which is being fueled by powerful interests, misinformation and the manipulation of legitimate anxieties. Fossil fuel lobbies are working overtime to delay the green transition by sowing confusion and polarization. But this year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference COP30, taking place in Belém, Brazil, is our chance to change this. It is an opportunity to be remembered not just for new pledges or targets but for rebooting the relationship between citizens and the climate regime, a chance to truly be the “People’s COP.” To that end, a new proposal, supported by the Brazilian Presidency and detailed in a policy paper sets out a vision for embedding citizen participation directly into the U.N. process — a Citizens’ Track. It calls for a dedicated space where ordinary people can be heard, where they can share how they’re organizing, what solutions they’re building to address the climate crisis, and what a sustainable future means to them. There are a number of reasons why this must happen: First, citizens are crucial for implementation. They provide the political mandate as well as the practical muscle. Communities have the power to accelerate or obstruct new renewable projects, support or resist the mining of transition minerals, object to or defend policy options, and make daily choices that determine whether the transition succeeds. But framing citizens as critical partners isn’t just pragmatic, it also defines the kind of transition we want to build — one of economic empowerment and social justice. A people-led approach cultivates a vision of more democracy not less, more agency not less, more protection not less. This kind of participation can be a deliberate counterweight to the forces of homogenization and alienation, which have hollowed out trust in globalization, and ground the transition in diversity, creativity and shared responsibility. This is not an anti-business agenda — it’s one that balances relationships between citizens, governments and finance, ensuring decisions are made with people and not for them. Second, participation builds fairness and resilience. A space at the multilateral level dedicated to advancing the peoples’ agenda offers a structured way to confront the questions that often fuel the political backlash against climate and environmental regulations: Who pays? Who benefits? Who’s left behind? More importantly, what can be done to resolve these trade-offs? When such concerns are ignored, resentment grows. The farmers’ protests across Europe, for instance, have been targeting the perceived unfairness of climate policies — not their goals. Elsewhere, communities are worried about the everyday realities of employment, growing costs and cultural change. A Citizens’ Track would allow these anxieties to surface, be heard and then addressed through dialogue and cooperation rather than division. Finally, participation also restores connection and hope. For too long, the climate movement has warned of catastrophe without offering a compelling vision of the future. A Citizens’ Track could fill that void, offering a modern, technology-enabled framework for deliberation and for reconnecting politics and people in an age of polarization. The farmers’ protests across Europe, for instance, have been targeting the perceived unfairness of climate policies — not their goals. | Mustafa Yalcin/Getty Images In an era dominated by algorithms that amplify outrage, a citizens’ process could invite reflection, reason and shared imagination. Everyone wants to know the truth. Everyone wants to live in a world of stronger communities. No one wants to inhabit a reality defined by manipulation, cynicism and emotional violence. A Citizens’ Track points to a different future, where disagreement is met with respect, rather than hostility. This is a vision that builds on a quiet revolution that’s already underway. More than 11,000 participatory budgeting initiatives have been implemented worldwide in the last three decades, allowing communities to decide how public resources are spent. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has tracked over 700 citizens’ assemblies and mini-publics, and found that participation has accelerated sharply in the last decade, with digital platforms enabling tens of millions of people to deliberate key issues. From Kerala, India’s People’s Plan of decentralized government to participatory ward committees in South Africa and Paris’ permanent citizens assembly, citizen’s voices are being institutionalized in local, regional or national governance all over the world. And now is the time to elevate this approach to the multilateral level. Initiatives like these form already a distributed movement, an informal ecosystem of participation shaping the future one action at a time — but they remain disconnected. By opening a dedicated space that aggregates these discreet citizen and community efforts, COP30 could inject renewed energy into the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. A decade ago, the Lima–Paris Action Agenda opened the door for cities, businesses and civil society to contribute to global progress. Today, the next step is clear. We cannot let governments off the hook on climate. Nor can we wait for them. This is the future a Citizens’ Track can deliver — and the legacy Belém must leave behind.

PARIS — The European Ombudsman has launched a probe into a text message sent by French President Emmanuel Macron to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last year asking that she block the EU-Mercosur trade deal, which was revealed by POLITICO. “European Ombudswoman Teresa Anjinho decided to open an inquiry into how the European Commission handled an access to documents request for a text message its President received from the French President regarding trade negotiations with Mercosur countries,” the Ombudsman’s office wrote in a statement published on Tuesday. In January 2024, POLITICO reported that Macron had privately texted von der Leyen in an attempt to derail a trade deal between the EU and the Mercosur group of Latin American countries, which was strongly opposed by the French government. Follow the Money journalist Alexander Fanta requested access to the message, but the Commission replied it could not identify the text as “the ‘disappearing messages’ feature of the instant-messaging mobile application ‘Signal’ was activated on the phone on which the message had been received,” according to the Ombudsman. The Commission told the complainant that von der Leyen and her head of cabinet had decided there was no need to register the message and let it disappear. It’s not the first time von der Leyen’s handling of text messages has come under scrutiny. In May, an EU court found that the European Commission had been wrong to refuse access to von der Leyen’s text messages with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. In that case, the European Commission also reviewed the texts in question and allowed them to be lost. The Ombudsman has asked the Commission for a meeting by mid-October to discuss Macron’s text and wants the EU executive to share documents showing the “steps taken by the Commission in dealing with the access request” by Oct. 1. The message from Macron, a long-time opponent of the EU-Mercosur trade deal, was sent in January 2024 when France was facing massive farmer protests. The trade deal was ultimately sealed in December last year. POLITICO has reached out to the Commission and Macron’s office for comment. This article has been updated.

PARIS — A petition launched by a 23-year-old student to repeal a new French law on farming has garnered more than 549,000 signatures and could therefore be debated in the French parliament — a first in France’s recent history. The French parliament earlier this month adopted a law, dubbed “Loi Duplomb” after the name of one of its proponents, which its supporters say would make life easier for farmers by cutting red tape, but also by temporarily allowing the use of acetamiprid, an insecticide that has been banned in France since 2018. The text is backed by the government and also by major farmer lobbies FNSEA and Jeunes Agriculteurs, while one left-wing farmers union as well as green and left-wing parties oppose it. The petition launched by Eleonore Pattery — an unknown university student from Bordeaux with a focus on environmental rules — calls for repealing the text, arguing that it is “a scientific, ethical, environmental and health aberration.” On Saturday the number of signatures passed the threshold of 500,000. Beyond that threshold, the heads of parliamentary groups or parliamentary committees can propose to organize a parliamentary debate on it. The president of the National Assembly economic affairs committee, Aurélie Trouvé, from the left-wing France Unbowed party, said she will make that proposal in the fall. “It is the first time it happens in the history of the National Assembly,” a jubilant Trouvé told POLITICO over the phone on Saturday. But, for the debate to happen, the proposal has to first get the nod of the National Assembly’s Conference of Presidents, an organ which gathers key lawmakers including the leaders of permanent parliamentary committees like Trouvé. The Conference of Presidents will meet again on Sept. 12. “I hope that we will be able to have this debate,” Trouvé said, warning that ignoring the petition would be a “democratic denial.” While the text can’t be repealed during the parliamentary debate, the success of the petition is a blow for the government and for farmers’ lobbies that have defended the measure on a symbolical level. France’s Constitutional Council is also looking into the text and could censor part of it if the council considers them to be contrary to the constitution.

BRUSSELS — The European Commission announced Monday it had reached an agreement with Ukraine to update their existing free trade agreement, granting Kyiv improved market access compared to pre-war terms, though not fully restoring wartime trade liberalization measures. The deal marks a significant reprieve for Ukraine, which continues to resist Russian aggression more than three years after President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion. Earlier this month, Ukraine lost emergency trade waivers granted by Brussels early in the war. “Today’s agreement in principle is balanced, fair and realistic. It represents the best possible outcome under difficult geopolitical conditions,” EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič told a news conference. “Politically, this is a strong signal of support to Ukraine as it defends its sovereignty and democratic future. And crucially, it is also a response to concerns voiced by our member states, farmers and food producers.” The revised deal, which confirms an earlier report by POLITICO, builds on the existing EU-Ukraine free trade agreement but updates it to reflect lessons from the war.  Ukraine has committed to continue aligning its farming standards with EU rules — a process already underway as part of its path to membership. Full alignment is expected by 2028, including in areas like animal welfare and pesticide use.  The deal also allows either side to curb imports if they cause serious market disruption. And while Ukraine won’t regain the blanket tariff-free access it enjoyed during the war, the new terms raise quotas for many products that weren’t previously liberalized, while keeping tighter limits on a narrow list of politically sensitive goods like sugar, poultry, eggs and wheat. Ukraine’s top trade negotiator Taras Kachka described the outcome as “a really good deal,” telling POLITICO the level of liberalization secured in the agreement will allow Ukraine to maintain wartime trade volumes, with only a few exceptions.  “We actually follow EU standards — and we started this not today but 15 years ago,” Kachka said, adding that the agreement helps show Ukraine is “a predictable trade partner” and lays the groundwork for deeper economic integration. The agreement follows months of tense negotiations and uncertainty for Ukrainian exporters. The EU’s temporary wartime measures had initially lifted tariffs on all Ukrainian products, but later reinstated caps on sensitive agricultural goods. When these Autonomous Trade Measures (ATMs) lapsed on June 6, the Commission introduced a hasty interim solution, snapping back quotas to pre-war levels and sparking a scramble among Ukrainian exporters to move goods before hitting the ceiling. BRIDGES OF RESILIENCE European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hailed the agreement, saying in a statement it will build “bridges of resilience and economic solidarity in the face of Russia’s unjustified war of aggression.” The deal would safeguard the interests of European farmers, while embedding Ukraine as part of the European family, she said in a statement: “We remain committed to a path of mutual growth and stability, leading to its full integration in our Union.” Ukrainian exports to the EU have surged since Russia’s full-scale invasion, bolstered by the wartime suspension of tariffs. That liberalization helped offset Kyiv’s wartime losses, but triggered a political backlash in frontline EU countries, where farmers blame cheap Ukrainian goods for undercutting prices. A patchwork of national bans and licensing systems remains in place in countries like Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania.  Following Monday’s agreement at political level, both sides will work to fine tune its technical elements, the Commission said, with EU member countries and the European Parliament to be briefed in the coming days. Subject to hammering out a final legal text, both sides will proceed with formally endorsing the update to the existing trade agreement. On the EU side, the deal would need to be endorsed by the Council, representing EU member countries. It would then be formally adopted by the EU-Ukraine Association Committee. This story has been updated.