**From The Telegraph’s Europe Edito James Crisp, Henry Samuel and Berlin Correspondent, James Rothwell:**
The farmers travelled across Europe to make their presence known in Brussels, but they needn’t have bothered.The EU is already painfully aware of the populist rebellion bubbling up against its net zero plans after a string of dramatic tractor protests that threaten to mushroom into a continent-wide movement as June’s European elections approach.
Disruptive farmers’ protests are nothing new in Europe, but this is different.
Tractors are or have been on the march in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Belgium, and, crucially, the Netherlands.
Would tractor protests have become so ubiquitous were it not for the Dutch farmers, whose fight captured the attention of the likes of Donald Trump and Elon Musk?
While grassroots uprisings like France’s “gilets jaunes” inspired their share of copycat movements, they did not enjoy the same success as the Dutch last year.
Dutch voters headed to the polls in regional elections in March for a vote that was overshadowed by demonstrations against EU climate targets for nitrogen reduction.
The farmers – in the world’s second-largest agricultural exporting country – were particularly incensed at the plans of Mark Rutte, the prime minister, to buy out and shut down farms to hit the targets.
Their demonstrations, despite occasional outbreaks of violence and accusations that the far-Right had infiltrated the movement, struck a chord far beyond their rural base.
Urban voters were tired of Mr Rutte, the longest-serving prime minister in Dutch history, and the elections became an effective referendum on his 13 years in office.
**Political earthquake in Netherlands**
In them, voters turned to the Farmers-Citizen Movement (BBB), a party closely associated with the protests.
Launched in 2019, it had a single MP, its leader and founder Caroline van der Plas, a journalist and farmer’s daughter.
But it won a landslide victory in the regional elections to become the largest party in all 12 Dutch provinces.
The political earthquake shook Mr Rutte’s coalition government, which collapsed in a row over migration in July, leading to a general election in December.
That brought another major upset. The winner by a distance in the general election was veteran Right-winger Geert Wilders.
The anti-migrant nationalist is a fierce critic of Islam, and of the EU. A supporter of a Nexit referendum, Mr Wilders has also called for the Netherlands to quit the Paris climate change agreement.
The BBB were leading in the polls before Mr Rutte resigned, but lost ground to the controversial Mr Wilders.
Nonetheless, it won seven seats, a jump of six, in the Dutch parliament and is in the mix to be part of a future Wilders-led coalition government of Right-wing parties.
That success was even sweeter for the BBB because of the defeat handed to Frans Timmermans, who led an alliance of Left-wing and green parties in the election.
Mr Timmermans quit his job as the EU’s climate chief to fight the campaign but was beaten into a distant second place by Mr Wilders.
“The farmers’ actions, which gave birth to the BBB, and their success, has inspired other farmers’ organisations abroad,” said Andre Krouwel, who teaches political science at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
Social media and the dominance of the populist Right on those platforms had played a part, he added.
“The narrative of farmers has become connected to a more general story about decline of national symbols, of national landscapes, of national traditional ways of life […] a kind of nostalgic nationalism,” he added.
This, he said, had combined with the cost of living crisis and the rising cost of food to transform once popular green policies into “bread and butter” economic policies.
“The reason why we see this enormous mobilisation and support for farmers is the economic vulnerability of people assuming these environmental policies will hit them in their wallets,” Mr Krouwel said.
He predicted the movement would continue to spread across Europe from its source in the Netherlands, which he said was “a Petri dish for political experiments” thanks to its low vote threshold, which encourages new parties.
Once the genie escaped from the Dutch political laboratory, there were swiftly copycat anti-nitrogen cut protests among farmers in neighbouring Flanders.
Good for them, i don’t know what they want from the politics here since they’re less than 4% of our GDP, politicians will hardly care about them
If environmentalist protesters behave like these “farmer” protesters, The Telegraph would want the police to beat them up and throw them in prison.
Gets subsidies from eu, in exchange for enviroment requirements that they have to meet. Takes money, forgets the rest.
Somewhere read, 25% of eu “budget” goes to farmers. Also I’m all in for small farms, but not for the big guys. Small farms cant afford 2020 john deeres…
Farmers sure are an angry bunch, considering that their income basically consists of handouts from taxpayers.
ITT people who dont know why subsidies are neccesary for food security
[spoiled brats](https://i.postimg.cc/T1rXWYvV/imagem-2024-01-27-145132157.png) if enviromentalist protests were like these there would be massive backlash, but the farmers who get special treatment still bitch when all they are asked is to reduce emissions
Love the “Small Farm” BS. With only small farm, Europe would starve.
Stop the subsidies to farmers who won’t comply with the regulations
Let the small farms die.
They are clearly russian trolls because in the EU everyone has the same opinion and if they dont, they are russian trolls.
Nice, fuck this net zero bs
Most farmers could sell their land and machinery anytime if it really is not worth it, and after that they will be wealthier than 90 percent of the rest of the people.
I support Farmers, these environmental restrictions damage local farmers while importing food from other countries which do not follow these laws.
14 comments
**From The Telegraph’s Europe Edito James Crisp, Henry Samuel and Berlin Correspondent, James Rothwell:**
The farmers travelled across Europe to make their presence known in Brussels, but they needn’t have bothered.The EU is already painfully aware of the populist rebellion bubbling up against its net zero plans after a string of dramatic tractor protests that threaten to mushroom into a continent-wide movement as June’s European elections approach.
Disruptive farmers’ protests are nothing new in Europe, but this is different.
Tractors are or have been on the march in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Belgium, and, crucially, the Netherlands.
Would tractor protests have become so ubiquitous were it not for the Dutch farmers, whose fight captured the attention of the likes of Donald Trump and Elon Musk?
While grassroots uprisings like France’s “gilets jaunes” inspired their share of copycat movements, they did not enjoy the same success as the Dutch last year.
Dutch voters headed to the polls in regional elections in March for a vote that was overshadowed by demonstrations against EU climate targets for nitrogen reduction.
The farmers – in the world’s second-largest agricultural exporting country – were particularly incensed at the plans of Mark Rutte, the prime minister, to buy out and shut down farms to hit the targets.
Their demonstrations, despite occasional outbreaks of violence and accusations that the far-Right had infiltrated the movement, struck a chord far beyond their rural base.
Urban voters were tired of Mr Rutte, the longest-serving prime minister in Dutch history, and the elections became an effective referendum on his 13 years in office.
**Political earthquake in Netherlands**
In them, voters turned to the Farmers-Citizen Movement (BBB), a party closely associated with the protests.
Launched in 2019, it had a single MP, its leader and founder Caroline van der Plas, a journalist and farmer’s daughter.
But it won a landslide victory in the regional elections to become the largest party in all 12 Dutch provinces.
The political earthquake shook Mr Rutte’s coalition government, which collapsed in a row over migration in July, leading to a general election in December.
That brought another major upset. The winner by a distance in the general election was veteran Right-winger Geert Wilders.
The anti-migrant nationalist is a fierce critic of Islam, and of the EU. A supporter of a Nexit referendum, Mr Wilders has also called for the Netherlands to quit the Paris climate change agreement.
The BBB were leading in the polls before Mr Rutte resigned, but lost ground to the controversial Mr Wilders.
Nonetheless, it won seven seats, a jump of six, in the Dutch parliament and is in the mix to be part of a future Wilders-led coalition government of Right-wing parties.
That success was even sweeter for the BBB because of the defeat handed to Frans Timmermans, who led an alliance of Left-wing and green parties in the election.
Mr Timmermans quit his job as the EU’s climate chief to fight the campaign but was beaten into a distant second place by Mr Wilders.
“The farmers’ actions, which gave birth to the BBB, and their success, has inspired other farmers’ organisations abroad,” said Andre Krouwel, who teaches political science at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
Social media and the dominance of the populist Right on those platforms had played a part, he added.
“The narrative of farmers has become connected to a more general story about decline of national symbols, of national landscapes, of national traditional ways of life […] a kind of nostalgic nationalism,” he added.
This, he said, had combined with the cost of living crisis and the rising cost of food to transform once popular green policies into “bread and butter” economic policies.
“The reason why we see this enormous mobilisation and support for farmers is the economic vulnerability of people assuming these environmental policies will hit them in their wallets,” Mr Krouwel said.
He predicted the movement would continue to spread across Europe from its source in the Netherlands, which he said was “a Petri dish for political experiments” thanks to its low vote threshold, which encourages new parties.
Once the genie escaped from the Dutch political laboratory, there were swiftly copycat anti-nitrogen cut protests among farmers in neighbouring Flanders.
**Read more ⤵️**
[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/27/farmers-streets-europe-net-zero-protests/](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/27/farmers-streets-europe-net-zero-protests/)
Good for them, i don’t know what they want from the politics here since they’re less than 4% of our GDP, politicians will hardly care about them
If environmentalist protesters behave like these “farmer” protesters, The Telegraph would want the police to beat them up and throw them in prison.
Gets subsidies from eu, in exchange for enviroment requirements that they have to meet. Takes money, forgets the rest.
Somewhere read, 25% of eu “budget” goes to farmers. Also I’m all in for small farms, but not for the big guys. Small farms cant afford 2020 john deeres…
Farmers sure are an angry bunch, considering that their income basically consists of handouts from taxpayers.
ITT people who dont know why subsidies are neccesary for food security
[spoiled brats](https://i.postimg.cc/T1rXWYvV/imagem-2024-01-27-145132157.png) if enviromentalist protests were like these there would be massive backlash, but the farmers who get special treatment still bitch when all they are asked is to reduce emissions
Love the “Small Farm” BS. With only small farm, Europe would starve.
Stop the subsidies to farmers who won’t comply with the regulations
Let the small farms die.
They are clearly russian trolls because in the EU everyone has the same opinion and if they dont, they are russian trolls.
Nice, fuck this net zero bs
Most farmers could sell their land and machinery anytime if it really is not worth it, and after that they will be wealthier than 90 percent of the rest of the people.
I support Farmers, these environmental restrictions damage local farmers while importing food from other countries which do not follow these laws.