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The EU is reportedly reducing its agriculture policy budget, while allowing countries with less stringent agricultural standards to sell their products on its market. What is the real situation? Our fact checking team breaks it down for you.
Europe’s agriculture sector feels under threat in the face of changing budgets and policies and the inking of new foreign trade deals feared to create unfair competition with lower standards and pricing.
The tensions surrounding the topic have given rise to misinformation and disinformation on social platforms, fuelling distrust towards the EU, which we are looking into.
In Spain, old video was used and miscaptioned to suggest police were repressing farmer protests, while in Poland claims circulated of lab-grown meat being made of cancer cells.
A second-tier policy?
“European agriculture is being relegated to the second tier of the Union’s priorities,” the EU farmers and cooperatives’ association Copa-Cogeca stated last month.
Although agriculture has had a declining role in Europe’s economy over the past 30 years, it remains a steady force contributing to 1.3 percent to the EU’s GDP in 2024.
Heavyweights France, Germany, Italy, Spain, followed by the Netherlands, Poland and Romania, were responsible for a combined three-quarters of the estimated total value of the EU’s agricultural output that year.
European farmers have long benefited from policies and subsidies that bolster the industry.
The bloc’s long-term 2028–2034 budget proposed this summer aimed to simplify how farmers are compensated but at the same time follows a trend of a declining proportion of the overall budget.
“We are facing a disinvestment shock that has been ongoing for over a decade, and it is putting European agriculture at risk,” Yves Madre, President of Farm Europe said in a statement. “To maintain our sovereignty in food production and bioeconomy, we must prioritize agriculture and ensure that the EU budget reflects this priority.”
Unfair dumping?
Meanwhile, the EU-Mercosur agreement between the bloc and Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay has stoked fears that it would hurt Europe’s farmers by having to compete with imports held to lower standards and costs.
Yet a similar deal struck with Canada in 2017 has not been found to have negative impacts on European beef markets, with imports adhering to a three-percent quota, the European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE) reported.
While many experts say the EU largely stands to benefit from trade deals like Mercosur, think tank the Atlantic Council warned political polarisation in individual countries may overshadow economic gains.
The deal has raised broader concerns of its implications on rights and the environment globally.
The agreement lacks protections for workers, offering “no enforceable labour clauses or sanctions for companies which violate workers’ rights,” European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) has said.
Consumers are also at risk, with the deal allowing food imports that are at odds with the EU’s environmental, food safety, and animal welfare standards, according to BEUC, the European Consumer Organisation.
“Trade agreements should focus primarily on trading sustainable products that support the green transition, rather than those that hinder it,” it said.
While the EU has committed to maintaining standards protecting residents of the block, stating “health is not negotiable”, experts warn the environment could lose.
A rise in trade with Latin America will likely increase deforestation as agricultural production rises, experts from the Institut Polytechnique de Paris have said.
“Even if we’re talking about small volumes, (it) is likely to have an impact on the forests,” economist Charlotte Emlinger said.
Additional deliverables: For this monthly fact check, I also research and produce a much longer in-depth report for Euranet journalists to supplement their reporting on the topic, as well produce a pre-recorded radio story of the public-facing article.