Farmers Threaten Fresh Protests as Brussels Pushes Cuts and Trade Deals

European farmers are once again contemplating rolling tractors into Brussels, warning that sweeping subsidy cuts and controversial trade pacts risk plunging rural Europe into crisis.

After what industry leaders have branded a “black summer,” the EU’s largest agricultural lobby Copa-Cogeca is preparing a “collective political response” to the European Commission’s proposed overhaul of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and its drive to ratify potentially harmful trade agreements.

At the heart of the dispute is the Commission’s plan to slash the CAP budget by almost 30% in its 2028–2034 financial framework, from €386.6 billion to around €300 billion. Farmers fear this will erode food security and accelerate rural decline.

“Don’t try to sell us a 25% cut as a success story,” fumed centre-right MEP Herbert Dorfmann during a fiery July debate, in a rare show of unity across the European Parliament. Right-wing French MEP Gilles Pennelle went further, calling the reforms an “absolute disaster” and warning: “You are setting our countrysides on fire.”

The backlash has united political groups from Left to Right, who accuse Ursula von der Leyen’s Commission of betraying European farmers. The Commission insists that farming subsidies will remain protected, but industry leaders reject that narrative.

“Von der Leyen will go down in history as the gravedigger of the Common Agricultural Policy—practically the only thing still common in Europe,” Pedro Barato, National President of ASAJA, Spain’s largest farm union recently said at a farmers’ protest in Brussels in July.

Massimiliano Giansanti, the group’s president, head of Copa, was even more blunt: “If they want a declaration of war on farmers, we are ready.”

Tensions have been inflamed further by the EU’s pursuit of trade deals. Von der Leyen’s decision to launch the process of ratifying the Mercosur pact has angered Paris, Warsaw and farming groups, who fear being undercut by South American beef and poultry.

Copa-Cogeca’s secretary general Eli Tsiforou described the move as a “decision at a sensitive time” that would impose an “enormous cost on the sector.”

Simultaneously, Brussels’ attempts to ease tensions with Washington have backfired. Tsiforou denounced the EU-U.S. framework agreement as “utterly imbalanced,” pointing to new U.S. tariffs on wine and spirits while the EU granted zero tariffs on American farm exports.

Beijing’s retaliatory duties on EU pork and brandy have only deepened the unease.

While defence and space spending is set to soar to €131 billion in the next budget, agriculture is being trimmed. “If we continue like this and more and more farmers stop their activity, there will come a time when we Europeans will know what it means to buy products from outside Europe,” warned Giansanti, who framed farmers’ demands as a security issue.

The outrage has political consequences for von der Leyen: the Commission president will face two fresh motions of censure in October. One, brought forward by leftist parties in the European Parliament, criticises the Commission for the agreement with the United States and the Mercosur pact. The other, initiated by the Patriots for Europe, denounces von der Leyen, among other things, for betraying farmers.