German farmers’ association slams government relief package

In response to the farmer protests that rocked Europe earlier this year, the governing parliamentary groups in Germany have agreed to introduce a relief package for the agriculture sector, amid dissatisfaction from farmers’ organisation.

Farmers swept across Europe in a wave of mass protests at the end of last year. In Germany, they took to the streets against planned cuts in diesel subsidies.

On Tuesday (25 June), the leader of the liberal group in the Bundestag, Christian Dürr (FDP/Renew), announced that “as a coalition, we have agreed to introduce a major relief package for farmers”.

The three parliamentary leaders of the governing coalition – SPD, Greens, and FDP – said that, “as promised,” they will introduce various measures to strengthen the competitiveness of German agriculture.

These include reintroducing tax breaks such as income smoothing. This allows tax discounts in economically weak years, to be offset against stronger years. This will be possible retroactively imposed from 2023 to 2026. But the EU Commission will still have the final say on this measure.

In addition, the package aims to respond to European-wide demands for reducing bureaucracy for farmers.

The previous cuts to fuel discounts, that triggered the protests, were proposed because the federal government had to fill a budget hole of €17 billion, after the Federal Constitutional Court declared the originally planned budget unconstitutional.

As a result of the protests, several motorways and city centres were blocked. In January, the protest culminated in a rally of around 30,000 people and 5,000 tractors in Berlin.

Farmers not convinced

The announcement of the agreement was no random act. The next day – on Wednesday – the German Farmers’ Association opened “German Farmers’ Day”, where the package of measures attracted attention.

In his opening keynote speech, however, President of the German Farmers’ Association, Joachim Rukwied was clear in dismissing the package saying “This is not a relief package. It is merely a small bundle and light years away from what is necessary.”

Rukwied repeated his call for a tax-exempt mutual crisis fund for farmers, a mechanism to use savings stored in a positive economic cycle to be used in tougher times without being taxed on them. “This is absolutely necessary in order to be able to cushion and compensate for the increasing challenges and volatilities in the climate, yields and markets through taxation.”

The farmers’ president also rejected Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s (SPD/S&D) previously mentioned idea of raising the minimum wage to €15. Instead, tariff autonomy is necessary, he stressed calling for “a reorientation of policy.”

According to the farmers, the German government’s response to the protests at the beginning of the year was not considered satisfactory, but the polices at an EU level were a success.

The Europe-wide protests had “brought about a change in the agricultural policy agenda in Europe, in Brussels,” said Rukwied.

He emphasised the success of adjusting the GAEC standards, the ecological requirements that famers must respect to have access to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) support. According to the farmer’s chief, another good news from Brussels was the withdrawal of the controversial pesticide regulation.

“In Brussels, we have turned the political agenda around, at least in terms of policy, but we still need to do some work on the Commission staff,” Rukwied further added.

According to Rukwied, the European Elections were a “warning shot”. He interpreted the new composition of the European Parliament as a clear expression of “dissatisfaction with the direction of politics”.

[Edited by Nick Alipour/Angelo Di Mambro/Rajnish Singh]

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