The Bundestag factions of the traffic light parties have agreed on a package of measures for agriculture. “As promised,” this would relieve the burden on agricultural businesses and strengthen the competitiveness of German agriculture, explained the faction leaders Rolf Mützenich (SPD), Britta Hasselmann (Greens) and Christian Dürr (FDP) on Tuesday. A central component of this is the reduction of bureaucracy.
“We have evaluated almost 200 proposals from the federal states,” explained the party leaders. The implementation now requires cooperation between the federal and state governments. According to the information, part of the package is also the so-called tax profit smoothing. “In this way, we are mitigating the fluctuations in profits due to changing weather conditions, such as periods of drought.”
The package of measures stems from the farmers’ protests that began at the end of last year. For months, farmers had organized regular rallies across the country and paralyzed traffic with blockades. The trigger was a planned cut in subsidies for agricultural diesel. However, the protests soon turned more generally against agricultural policy, for example against requirements for farmers in terms of environmental and animal protection.
The federal government and the parliamentary groups then announced that they would draw up proposals for relief by the summer. The EU Commission also reacted to the farmers’ protests that had taken place in a number of countries and relaxed various environmental regulations. The federal government in turn implemented these into law, and the Bundestag is due to vote on them next week.
