Agricultural ministers from across the European Union pledged to do more to cut red tape and help farmers as they convened in Brussels to discuss the crisis in the sector after weeks of angry protests.

The 27-nation EU has already weakened some parts of its flagship Green Deal environmental policies, removing a goal to cut farming emissions from its 2040 climate roadmap.

But farmers are demanding more.

“We’re here again in Brussels today as farmers because the European Union is not listening to our demands. Our demands are for fair revenue,” said Morgan Ody, general coordinator of farming organization La Via Campesina.

“We produce the food and we don’t make a living. Why is that? Because of free trade agreements. Because of deregulation. Because the prices are below the cost of production. So we demand the EU to move on this.”

On the margins of the Brussels rally, riot police fired water cannon at protesters throwing bottles and eggs, while about 900 tractors jammed parts of the Belgian capital, not far from the cordoned-off area where ministers were meeting.

At a protest in Madrid, farmers from across Spain blew whistles, rang cowbells and beat drums, urging the EU to loosen regulations and drop some changes to its Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) of subsidies and other programs.

“It’s impossible to put up with these rules, they want us to work in the field during the day and deal with paperwork at night – we’re sick of the bureaucracy,” said Roberto Rodriguez, who grows cereal and beetroots in the central province of Avila.

Imports from Ukraine

In Poland, farmers angry with cheap imports from non-EU Ukraine blocked the A2 highway at a border crossing with Germany. The EU decided two years ago to waive duties on Ukraine’s food exports as Kyiv battles a Russian invasion.

“This is a show of common solidarity, that both Polish and German farmers will not allow these goods from Ukraine to continue to enter the European market,” said Adrian Wawrzyniak, a spokesperson for the Solidarity farmers’ union.

The EU aims to find a more effective solution so that farm products from Ukraine go to their traditional markets outside the EU, Belgian Agriculture Minister David Clarinval said after the ministerial meeting.

The agriculture ministers also debated a new set of proposals to ease financial pressures on European farmers, including a reduction in farm inspections and the possibility of exempting small farms from some environmental standards.

They asked the European Commission, the EU’s executive, to make more ambitious proposals on cutting red tape, Clarinval said.

Time at desk

German Agriculture Minister Cem Ozdemir said the EU needed to ensure farmers could earn good money if they opted for biodiversity and green measures, referring to existing EU farm policy as a “bureaucracy monster”.

“The average farmer spends a quarter of their time at their desks,” he said.

The EU has already scrapped over the past weeks a goal to cut farming emissions out of its 2040 climate roadmap, and has also withdrawn a law to reduce pesticides and delayed a target for farmers to leave some land fallow to improve biodiversity.

At the Madrid protest, some farmers said they just wanted to be allowed to use the same pesticides as counterparts outside the EU whose goods are imported into the bloc.

“We want to compete with the same deck of cards,” said Juan Carlos, a 54-year-old sunflower oil producer. “If they use a certain product (to fumigate), I want to be able to use the same one.”

Grievances vary from country to country, and not all farmers call for an end to green rules. La Via Campesina’s Ody called on the EU to set up minimum support prices.

“We are not against climate policies. But we know that in order to do the transition, we need higher prices for products because it costs more to produce in an ecological way,” she said.

–Reporting for Reuters by Kate Abnett, Yves Herman, Christian Levaux, Philip Blenkinsop in Brussels, David Latona in Madrid, Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk, Pawel Florkiewicz and Marek Strzeleck in Warsaw.

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Failure to resume exports into eastern European countries or secure an extension of the Black Sea grain deal would trap large amounts of grain in Ukraine, hitting its exports and causing further economic problems for Kyiv as it battles Russian troops.

European Union member states Poland, Hungary and Slovakia had imposed import bans to protect their markets from an influx of cheaper supply following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and Warsaw banned their transit through Poland at the weekend.

But Polish Agriculture Minister Robert Telus said a second day of talks in Warsaw had produced a breakthrough, with transit to be monitored and sealed. The deal will go into force at midnight on Friday, Development Minister Waldemar Buda said.

“We were forced to close the border because the EU had its eyes closed on large amounts of grain flowing into Poland, but at the same time we continued talks with Ukraine on how to enable transits, but with a guarantee grains would not be stuck in Poland, and we managed to find a solution,” Telus told a news conference in Warsaw.

Ukrainian First Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko told the news conference she was confident Ukrainian exporters would respect the terms of the deal agreed with Poland.

It was not immediately clear how the other countries that have imposed import bans on Ukraine would react after the agreement in Warsaw, with Romania looking likely earlier on Tuesday to impose a similar ban.

Large quantities of Ukrainian grain have been trapped by bottlenecks in eastern and central Europe as low global prices and demand mean grain cannot easily be sold on.

The bottlenecks have reduced prices and hurt sales by local farmers, putting political pressure on governments in the region, particularly the Polish government before an election.

The EU has criticized member states for putting individual bans in place, and EU envoys are set to discuss the measures on Wednesday, a senior EU official said.

Bulgaria has also been considering a ban. The Czech Republic has said it will not impose a ban on its own but wants an EU solution.

Black Sea grain deal in doubt

Ukraine, which relies on grain and food sales for a significant slice of its gross domestic product, also has concerns about the Black Sea Grain Initiative brokered between Moscow and Kyiv by Turkey and the United Nations last July.

The initiative, intended to alleviate global food shortages by allowing exports to resume from three ports that had been blockaded in Ukraine, is set to expire on May 18.

It is unclear whether it will be extended because Russia says a separate deal meant to ease its own agricultural and fertilizer exports has not been upheld.

“It is under threat of being halted and Russia has again blocked the inspection of ships,” Svyrydenko told the news conference in Warsaw.

“It is extremely important for us to unblock transit, otherwise Ukraine will remain blocked. We cannot together with our partners give Russia the opportunity to take advantage of this situation,” she said.

Russian news agency RIA said on Tuesday the inspections had restarted but a senior Ukrainian official told Reuters: “Nothing has been resolved.”

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said there had been no ship inspections on Monday or Tuesday.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will discuss the Ukraine Black Sea grain export deal with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in New York next week, Russia’s U.N. envoy said on Tuesday.

— Reporting for Reuters by Pawel Florkiewicz and Anna Koper in Warsaw, Luiza Ilie in Bucharest, Krisztina Than in Budapest, Pavel Polityuk in Kyiv, Humeyra Pamuk in Tokyo and Michelle Nichols at the United Nations; writing by Timothy Heritage.

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