How the far right aims to ride farmers’ outrage to power in Europe

BRUSSELS — If the far right ever seizes power across Europe, it may well ride in on the back of a tractor.

From Italy to the Netherlands, right-wing parties like France’s National Rally and the Alternative for Germany are piggybacking on farmers’ noisy outrage — complete with snorting tractors and livestock parades — ahead of an EU-wide election in June.

The explosive tie-up has led to violence, such as when angry farmers in Germany earlier this year cornered Economy Minister Robert Habeck on a ferry, forcing him to make a hasty exit via a separate vessel. It taps into long-standing European fears about losing control of food supply — often symbolized by hormone-fed beef or genetically-modified produce showing up on EU supermarket shelves.

“Farmers’ anger has become a major issue for the far right across Europe,” said Kevin Cunningham, a political scientist who has studied the surge in support for the far right for the European Council on Foreign Relations. “It may not be the number one issue, it is surprisingly effective at crystalizing resentment over economic problems.”

As campaigning for the European election in June kicks off, polls suggest the farmer-populist tie-up is helping to supercharge the appeal of far-right parties among the bloc’s nearly nine million farmers. The referendum against governments eschewing local production for cheaper imports from Ukraine and spikes in diesel taxes both coupled with inflation means growing discontent  among farmers  is spreading across the Continent.

On Wednesday, a survey carried out by the European Council on Foreign Relations showed far-right parties placing first in nine EU countries and significantly expanding their number of seats in the European Parliament. That chimes with POLITICO’s Poll of Polls, which shows the right-wing Identity and Democracy group gaining seats to become the third largest political group in the European Parliament.

While farmers’ outrage was once dominated by the political left — with mustachioed leaders like Frenchman José Bové targeting free trade deals and multinational firms — this time it’s co-opted by right-wingers bent on bringing down Brussels and its Green Deal environmental reforms.

Everyone’s pushing right

Pressure from the right is already pushing more mainstream conservative groups like the center-right European People’s Party to go on the attack against the Green Deal, which was a signature policy of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and her erstwhile environment czar, Frans Timmermans. The EPP led a rebellion against a so-called Nature Restoration law late last year, narrowly falling short of killing the bill — and now calls for unwinding a 2035 ban on the combustion engine.

Yet far-right groups like Identity and Democracy are looking to go much further. At an event hosted by the Viktor Orbán-linked MCC think tank in Brussels, right-wing EU lawmaker Patricia Chagnon openly praised the hardline farmer protest movement “Farmers’ Defense Force,” which she said had played a key role in “overthrowing” the Dutch government.

“It’s a huge sign of hope, of encouragement, I think, for other farmers,” she said. “An example to follow.”

In an effort to fight back, von der Leyen this week held talks with representatives from farming, industry, consumer organizations and NGOs as a way to achieve “more dialogue and less polarization” in agricultural policy making.

‘Overthrowing Governments’

At a gathering of angry farmers in Brussels this week, right-wing EU lawmaker Nicolas Bay told POLITICO that the outrage against free trade deals and green rules created in Brussels was indeed pan-European — and a major driver for anti-EU parties ahead of the June election.

“I think there’s a continental dimension to this phenomenon,” he told POLITICO. “It’s European agriculture in its entirety that is suffering … and European farmers can no longer stand the free trade policies and types of farming that Brussels is trying to impose on them.”

In the Netherlands, rolling protests against a ruling that cut nitrogen emissions foreshadowed and very likely played into the shock victory of right-wing populist Geert Wilders during national elections last November.

In Germany, the far-right AfD party has ridden a wave of at times violent farmers’ protests to go on the attack against Social Democrat Chancellor Olaf Scholz, helping the anti-immigration party to second place in national polls.

And in France, National Rally party president Jordan Bardella is using the same playbook to accuse centrist President Emmanuel Macron of wanting to “kill our agriculture” as the anti-immigrant, anti-EU party eyes a first-place finish in the EU-wide election.

In Italy and Ireland, the same dynamic is playing out — far-right populist movements latching onto farmers’ movements and drowning out the voices of traditional advocates like trade unions and farmers’ parties.

“They’ve taken markets away from us. And they’re not producing with the same rules as we are!” said Benoît Laqueue, a French cattle-and-cereal farmer who’d gotten up at 5 a.m. to join the protest in front of the European Parliament.

Such criticism can seem ironic given that European farmers benefit from one of the most generous subsidy policies in the world, the Common Agricultural Policy, which funnels tens of billions of euros into farmers’ pockets each year. At the rally on Wednesday, farmers questioned by POLITICO said they were happy to keep pocketing CAP money.

But several voiced anger at “technocrats” in Brussels whom they accused of drowning them in rules that were too burdensome for small farmers while subjecting them to unfair competition from rivals in other parts of the world.

Marion Maréchal, a French right-wing politician who’s the niece of former presidential contender Marine Le Pen, said it was the European Green Deal and its “tsunami” of rules that was fueling farmers’ outrage at the protest in Brussels. “This is also Europe’s fault,” she said.

Nicolas Camut contributed reporting.