On Tuesday, farmers will be demonstrating again in Brussels. They are demanding guarantees to ensure that agriculture remains viable in Europe. They also want to see a relaxation of the reporting and regulatory regime, and for Brussels to abandon free trade agreements with countries outside the EU.
According to conservative Polish MEP Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, the EU establishment is applying a form of moral blackmail by saying that in order to help Ukraine, the EU must open its borders to duty-free trade in agricultural goods. In reality, Ukraine needs more ammunition and money, and those are goods the EU cannot or will not deliver.
Saryusz-Wolski added that the EU establishment is not protecting its farmers, especially those on its eastern flank of NATO. The money derived from Ukrainian agricultural exports does not support Ukraine’s budget or war effort, but instead ends up in the pockets of its oligarchs or Western multinational companies, often registered in tax havens.
The Polish MEP believes that what is really at stake is the dismantling of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The main objective of the CAP was always to ensure food security for the whole of Europe by ensuring Europe is self-sufficient in food.
However, today, “the EU’s mainstream and the industrial and financial lobbies, especially that of Germany, want to move away from the original paradigm to be free of the need to finance the CAP,” said Saryusz-Wolski. The EU wants, instead, to concentrate on new objectives such as net-zero.
Saryusz-Wolski is convinced that imports of agricultural produce from Ukraine and South America are to replace food production in Western and Central Europe, and that the issue of aid for Ukraine is a convenient smoke screen towards the goal of getting rid of the CAP.
