Why Farmers Protests are Spreading to Spain, Italy and Greece

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The farmers protests against green policies that have swept across Europe have spread to Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal. So in this video, we’ll explain these protests, what’s motivating them and what it all means for Europe’s future green transition.

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1 – https://www.ft.com/content/00b344d9-8ff9-4a71-ae31-a76daecb96ab
2 – https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/feb/02/why-are-farmers-protesting-across-the-eu-and-what-can-the-bloc-do-about-it
3 – https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/spanish-farmers-take-streets-fourth-day-plan-madrid-protests-2024-02-09/
4 – https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240209-meloni-restores-tax-breaks-after-farmer-protests-reach-colosseum
5 – https://greekreporter.com/2024/02/12/angry-farmers-blockade-roads-in-greece-demanding-compensation-aid/
6 – https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/european-green-deal/agriculture-and-green-deal_en
7 – https://www.euronews.com/2024/02/13/spanish-polish-and-moldovan-farmers-continue-to-denounce-eu-policies
8 – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68167942
9 – https://bnnbreaking.com/breaking-news/agriculture/spanish-farmers-protest-cheap-moroccan-tomato-imports-a-battle-for-survival
10 – https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/en/blog/2023/europes-widening-rural-urban-divide-may-make-space-far-right
11 – https://www.ft.com/content/c642343b-589e-4347-9a7f-ff04b83728ff

00:00 Introduction
00:55 The Latest Protests
03:01 Why Farmers Are Angry
07:02 What Happens Next?
08:16 Nebula

This video was brought to you by nebula over the past few weeks European Farmers have really stolen the spotlight and that’s because a wave of farmers protests have swept across the Netherlands Germany France Belgium Poland and Hungary forcing the EU to announce last week that it would scrap a

Regulation from its 2040 agricultural emissions Target and itch a plan to cut its pesticide use in half apparently inspired by their peers success in the past few days process of spread to Spain Italy Greece and Portugal too so in this video we’ll take a look at the latest

Protests the emerging Urban rural divide in European politics and what might happen Next before we start if you haven’t already please consider subscribing and ringing the bell to stay in the loop and be notified when we release new videos let’s start by taking a look at the news from Spain Italy and Greece last week in Spain the situation escalated when three Farmers associations joined protests

Blocking roads in eight autonomous communities in just the first 3 days the Spanish police filed administrative sanctions for over 5,000 people including at least 799 violations of Spain’s controversial citizen security law also known as the gag law and arrested at least 19 people regardless 2,000 tractors brought Barcelona to a

Standstill while in the city of CAD real Farmers poured 25,000 L of French wine into the street in front of the local water authority to protest against water restrictions meanwhile in Italy 1600 tractors assembled on the outskirts of Rome last Friday preparing to arrive in the capital by Monday farmers in Milan

Even brought a cow to a march with them through the streets and Italian Prime Minister Georgia Maloney has already u-turned on an income tax exemption for Farmers that was due to to expire this year meanwhile in Greece farmers are continuing to set up roadblocks in Macedonia and thessy where the cities of

Lissa and kadida have seen protesters dump hay bales and milk on the streets while the main Athens thiki Highway was blocked ahead of a meeting between Greek farmers and the prime minister in Athens on Tuesday and last weekend representatives from the Central and West Macedonia regions reportedly met to consider blockading Greece’s borders

With Albania Bulgaria and North Macedonia now perhaps inspired by the political success of the farmer citizen movement in the Netherlands many rightwing politicians have expressed their support for these Farmers Maloney has repeatedly stressed that her government has already diverted 3 billion euros from The eu’s post-pandemic Recovery Fund to the

Agricultural sector and the controversial leader of Spain’s Vox party has called Farmers victims of the policies of Sanchez macron the European commission and also the the European people’s party so what’s motivating these Farmers protests in southern Europe well as we see it there are at least four reasons the eu’s climate

Policies cost of living concerns competition from foreign imports and the emerging Urban rural divide firstly the eu’s new climate policies now the EU reformed its common agricultural policy as part of the European green deal in July 2023 introducing stricter regulations to reduce Greenhouse gas emissions by pushing Farmers towards

More sustainable but costlier practices for context while farming makes up just 1.4% of the eu’s GDP and 4.2% of employment it accounts for over 14% of its greenhouse gas emissions in Spain for instance farmers are protesting plans to reduce the amount of water used from the tarus river to irrigate

Farmland in the Southeast which Mercy’s Regional leader said could threaten 25,000 jobs other Farmers have also complained that these new regulations are unduly bureaucratic creating an unreasonable amount of paperwork now onto our second reason the cost of living concerns High Energy prices after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine hit Europe’s Farmers particularly hard given

The large amount of energy required for agricultural processes and natural gas’s role in the production of fertilizers while agricultural input costs have come down since farmers in southern Europe have been hit with a series of extreme weather events which have been ironically and depressing ly made more likely by climate change Spanish Farmers

For instance are currently struggling with a record-breaking drought with some water reservoirs at less than 15% capacity and early this month Catalia described itself as in a state of emergency this has made irrigation which accounts for about 14% of water use within the oecd countries more difficult and more costly similarly increase last

Year wildfires wiped out about 20% of annual Farm revenue and in northeastern Italy which is home to Europe’s most agriculturally productive areas it’s at risk of becoming an arid Zone due to the increasingly frequent droughts and extreme high temperatures in fact data from kaisha Bank suggests that climate

Change is already leading to lower yields and weaker sector growth in southern Europe to make matters worse EU analysis suggests that the mediterranean’s agricultural sector will become more adversely affected by climate change than other parts of Europe in the future onto our third reason competition for foreign imports in

Eastern Europe Farmers have been protesting over the impact of cheap Ukrainian Imports and Now farmers in Spain are taking issue with cheap imports from Morocco too tomatoes have become the latest Target in a long-standing dispute between the two countries with one Spanish newspaper even asking does the European Union want

To depend on Muhammad v 6 when making its salads cheap Moroccan produce has caused the price of tomatoes to drop 40% in Spain over the last last year and some Spanish Farmers have recently dumped boxes of Moroccan cherry tomatoes out of the back of a truck in Fury onto

Our fourth and final reason the emerging Urban rural divide essentially these protests are partly a symptom of a general feeling in Europe’s rural communities that they’re being in some sense ignored by their governments which in turn is creating a new Urban rural divide in European politics to be fair

Here there is a growing economic disparity in EU countries between the rural and urban areas between 2012 and 2021 the urban rural Gap in incomes increased by almost 20% and employment rates have been consistently higher in urban areas polling suggests that people in rural areas also feel more neglected

By their National governments and are less likely to trust the EU with The Gap widening significantly since just 2020 this divide is also reflected in voting patterns with rural voters more likely to vote for euroskeptic socially conservative and migration skeptic parties so with that all considered what happens next well the farmers have

Already won some pretty significant concessions from both the EU and their National governments including perhaps most notably the effective suspension of the long- awaited EU Merkur trade deal unfortunately for the EU and European governments this has apparently only encouraged other farmers and protest now looks at to continue through at least

Late February going forward this is going to make both the EU and National government’s far more wary of introducing not just any legislation that affects Farmers but also any climate legislation with politically uncomfortable distribution effects in other words it’s probably going to make European policy makers far more cautious

About the green transition and what this might sound like unequivocally bad news for anyone who thinks that Europe should be doing more towards net zero in a sense though this is a conversation that Europe needs to have the politics of the green transition have been relatively uncontentious so far because a we did

The easy stuff first and B setting targets and deadlines for future governments is a lot easier than actually meeting them now these deadlines are approaching and Net Zero becomes more expensive Europe has to decide both how fast it wants to make the green transition and who should pay

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