Fed-up farmers are squeezing concessions out of intimidated, arrogant bureaucrats across Europe, and it is glorious.
European farmers have been protesting en masse by the tens of thousands across the continent regarding the European Union’s prioritization of its green agenda over the livelihoods of its own citizens. It has been squeezing them dry, and they are tired of it.
The EU has adopted a “European Green Deal” that claims to make them collectively “climate-neutral” by 2050. This requires the EU to collectively reduce net greenhouse emissions by 55% by 2030. They plan to send European society back to the Stone Age at any cost to appease their weather god.
The EU plans to achieve its deadline by demolishing enough of Europe to reduce its emissions. Nations like the Netherlands are reducing nitrogen emissions created by cow flatulence. Their strategy: kill the cows and shut down 3,000 livestock farms. No joke. Nations like France are reducing carbon emissions and lining their own pockets by taxing agricultural gas companies into submission.
Switching to nuclear would have saved Europe much of this trouble by providing clean energy, but most countries refuse to utilize it. Instead, nations like Germany choose to rely on imported Russian natural gas for a higher price. In 2022, only 21.8% of Europe’s electricity was generated by nuclear energy. That same year, when the EU imposed sanctions on Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine, it shut off its own primary energy source. Outstanding move.
The war in Ukraine makes the EU bureaucrats more fired up than any of their domestic problems. They have spent hundreds of billions of taxpayer euros on resources for Ukraine to keep pushing against an equal and opposite force to no avail. They successfully bullied Hungary into allowing them to blow 50 billion more on Thursday rather than dealing with any of the economic crises they have created for their own citizens.
The compassion of the EU’s bureaucracy is somewhat admirable, but it certainly goes too far in terms of international trade. Ever since Russia cut off Ukraine’s access to its main trade routes in the Black Sea, the EU has permitted Ukrainian goods to be funneled through its eastern lands at low prices. What this does to nations like Poland and Hungary, however, is drastically drop their domestic production. A similar problem occurs in nations made reliant on foreign imports like Spain, whose domestic prices also drop as a result.
Farmers across Europe have seen their yields exponentially damaged as a result of these destructive policies, and they have had enough. Pushed past their breaking points, they have taken their tractors and delivery trucks out in huge quantities to block off highways, trash supermarkets, and besiege the bureaucrats in their ivory towers at cities like Paris and Brussels.
Responses have varied among the panic and chaos due to the proximity of these mass protests to the European parliamentary elections. Some countries have finally begun to crack and have conceded to some concessions. Others claimed to have been simply seeking to assist farmers in adapting to the nation’s move toward the green agenda. Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron decided this week was the perfect time to enjoy fine dining with the royalty of Sweden.
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The elitist bureaucrats working for the EU have zero interest in the common good even while they pretend to promote it throughout topics like climate change, inclusion, solidarity, and so forth. But their policies speak louder than their virtue signaling, and the farmers of Europe have finally noticed.
One hopes that the European people, who have been largely opposed to the policies of these bureaucrats and hardly represented by them, will continue to fight these selfish oligarchs and elect politicians who hold the interests of the people in mind this year.
Parker Miller is a 2024 Washington Examiner winter fellow.