Endless contradictions
- As farmers’ protests spread across Europe, the “green growth” system on which the Green Deal is based shows its inconsistency
- The European Parliament denounced Greece’s deteriorating rule of law, but PM Mitsotakis and the Greek Supreme Court reject every accusation
- UN aid for Palestine is shrinking in a humanitarian regime led by Western countries
- The EU adopted its first legislation on the criminalisation of gender-based violence, but there is no common definition of rape
- The European Commission needs to update its framework to ensure fair working conditions for young people
- The EU is materialising its ultra-conservative and anti-migration agenda, and the right to asylum has never been weaker
Farmers’ discontent and unambitious EU Green Deal
This month the European Commission put forward a suggestion for the EU’s 2040 climate target. Its main recommendation for a 90% reduction in emissions might seem ambitious at first glance. However, experts claim things are not that simple. Not only is the 90% on the lower end of the 90-95% reduction recommended by its own Impact Assessment, it’s also been speculated that the actual target might be even lower. Instead of pushing for industry and agriculture to stick to the goal in the first place, the Commission suggests they use carbon removal to address residual emissions. Environmental groups fear this will undermine the EU’s efforts to reduce industrial carbon output, lowering the goal from 90% to 82%.
Farmers protested the deal all over the EU. Their anger stems from the rampant competition in the agricultural sector, as many small or family farmers are facing financial plight and are unable to compete with the big producers. Moreover, administrative burdens to access subsidies under the Common Agricultural Policy are highly demanding for small producers. However, some key environmental protection measures, that were adopted only in 2021, are already being sacrificed to satisfy the demands of farming organisations. These interest groups constitute a large part of the conservative electorate, which is crucial to be held off in view of the upcoming EP elections. In the long run, climate change negatively affects the agricultural sector: increased heat, droughts and floods will make the situation even more dire for the producers. At the same time, the agricultural sector is one of the main contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, which leads to the great paradox: the European Green Deal based on a system that couples green transition to economic growth is simply unachievable, and it does not contribute to a fair, feasible and truly sustainable transition for society.
It is in this space that right-wing populist parties take advantage of farmers’ desperation, by signing resolutions to ‘abolish’ the Green Deal and win the 2024 vote. Unfortunately, in a bid to give farmers a quick satisfaction, the Commission didn’t insist on many important regulations either. Not only did it exclude the 30% agricultural emission cut from the Deal’s final draft, but it also backtracked on the pesticide phase-out. The European Citizens’ Initiative ‘Save bees and farmers’ that collected more than one million signatures clearly asked to put an end to the use of pesticides, but it was openly ignored. This opens up further questions on the ECI instrument as a participatory process to the EU’s democracy. The Green party acknowledged the suffering of small farmers in their letter addressed to the Commission. Their proposed solution is not to compromise on the environmental regulations, but to take actions to tackle imbalances in the food chain.
Just another example of backsliding rule of law in Greece
On 7 February, the EP adopted its first ever resolution criticising the state of media freedom and rule of law in Greece. With 330 votes in favour and 254 trying to block it, primarily coming from the right-wing EPP group (where Mitsotakis’ New Democracy sits), the resolution asks the Greek government to adopt measures to remediate the situation and stop covering up rule of law violations.
As a reaction, Mitsotakis rejected every accusation and affirmed, in the event of a visit from the EP President Metsola in Athens, that rule of law in Greece is “stronger than ever”. Yet, poor media independence and SLAPPs (abusive lawsuits on journalists), the wiretapping scandal, the lack of progress in the judicial investigations on the Pylos shipwreck and in the Tempi train crash, the murder of the journalist George Karaivaz in 2021, attacks against civil society and human rights activists, police violence and mistreatment of migrants at borders tell exactly the opposite story.
The most worrying aspect of this issue is that, apart from Greece’s PM, the plenary of the Greek Supreme Court contested and downplayed the EP’s resolution, accusing it of “direct interference in the work of Greek judicial authorities”. Not very ironically, the Supreme Court’s response is more proof of scarce judicial independence in Greece.
The humanitarian regime paradox in Palestine
In “Human Capital: Global Labor and the Origins of Modern Refugee Policy” (2023), Laura Robson traces a line between the humanitarian international regime led by Western countries and the practice of refugee exploitation and containment. UNRWA is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, created in 1949 when Israel, after having settled Jewish immigrants in emptied palestinian houses and neighbourhoods, refused to allow displaced Palestinians back to their lands. UNRWA therefore had the “practical responsibility” for displaced Palestinians. But the real – yet silenced – aim of the agency was to channel refugee discontent away from its Israeli target and provide menial, cheap labor for the rapid industrialisation of the “Middle East”. This dominating scheme is well established in the international refugee regime, which also calls into question refugee agencies’ own account of their work.
Yet, UNRWA’s aid is the major source of assistance and relief to Palestinians, and its existence is today at a breaking point as its main donors – including the US, UK, Canada, and 10 EU Member States – froze funding amounting to 438 million dollars in response to Israel’s allegations that the UN agency’s staff participated in the October 7th attacks. Suspending funds at this crucial time constitutes, therefore, a collective punishment of Palestinians, as Israel is intensifying strikes on Rafah. This means that two million individuals across Gaza, the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon will be deprived of the humanitarian support coming from the UNRWA that has already been hindered by zionist forces. While Germany and Sweden, two of the main contributors to UNRWA’s budget, refuse to provide funding, an open letter by some “diverging” EU countries pushes for the continuation of basic humanitarian assistance. This, once again, shows how the EU’s approach to Gaza keeps being divided and silent.
Meanwhile, Hamas proposed ceasefire terms to Israel, which were promptly rejected by PM Netanyahu in the name of a possible “total victory”. While the world stands by watching ongoing genocide with no reaction, Nicaragua requested permission to intervene in the case started by South Africa against Israel before the International Court of Justice. Nicaragua accuses Germany, the UK and the Netherlands of supplying arms to Israel “to facilitate or commit violations of the Genocide Convention” in the Gaza Strip.
Rape definition splits EU leaders
The EP and the Council reached an agreement on the first EU legislation to combat violence against women. The directive will criminalise female genital mutilation, forced marriage and cyber crimes, and it is particularly important for women living in countries that have so far refused to ratify the Istanbul Convention.
However, the law falls short in a crucial point: after two years of negotiations, countries like Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechia, as well as France, Germany and the Netherlands successfully pushed to wipe off the definition of rape as non-consensual sex from the legislative text.
Although this law could have been a great victory, it ends up showing how patriarchal structures are replicated and enforced through institutions, with male representatives forming a blocking minority in order not to recognise the very basic concept for which “only yes means yes”.
The infinite cycle of traineeships
The European Commission has recently published an evaluation of the 2014 Quality Framework for Traineeships, assessing its implementation and contribution to strengthening the quality of traineeships across EU Member States.
Every year, more than 3.7 million young people undertake a traineeship as a first professional experience, which in many cases is repeated two or more times. The 2023 Eurobarometer on transitions to the labour market shows that only half of trainees responding to the survey have received financial compensation. This means that only those who are privileged enough to afford to work for free have access to the labour market, putting at risk of socio-economic exclusion those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Taking into account the cost of living crisis and rising youth unemployment, traineeships constitute a necessary step to enter the job market. But it is clear that the general practice across the EU is that this form of employment has become a way to exploit young people.
This is why civil society organisations across the EU have sent an open letter to the European Commission, inviting it to follow up on the European Youth Forum’s request to ban unpaid traineeships, as well as on the EP resolution adopted in June 2023, asking the European Commission to ensure quality traineeships in the EU.
Work is not a privilege reserved to few, but a basic human right, which the EU and its Member States have the duty to preserve and ensure through an updated framework that takes into account and responds to the state of affairs of youth’s deteriorating working and living conditions.
A nail in the coffin of the right to asylum
Unfortunately and as expected, the EP’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE Committee) voted in favour of the New Pact on Migration and Asylum on 14 February. Ironically, right after the vote, Doctors Without Borders (Greece) presented its report on border violence and the human cost of migration policies in the EU. After five years of exhausting negotiations, the EP gave up on almost all of its “red lines”, giving in to compromise with the Council on points that should have been non-negotiable. Some MEPs complained about the methods used in the latest negotiation phases, denouncing lack of transparency and rushed-through agreements. The fact that MEPs negotiating on behalf of the Parliament simply gave up on upholding its traditional role of human rights defender is the last and most evident sign of an EU shifting towards far-right, anti-immigration positions.
One of the points that was negotiated behind closed doors during the last few months, and which was voted on by the LIBE Committee on 14 February, concerns child protection: the deal foresees that unaccompanied minors will face ‘regular asylum procedures’ at the borders. Specific safeguards for families with children will be extremely limited, and young age will not exempt anyone from the border procedures. As Investigate Europe found out, France and the Netherlands secretly lobbied for the detention of child migrants at borders from birth. A number of other EU countries, including Denmark, Malta, and Czechia, agreed, citing as a reason that excluding minors from the border procedure was “impracticable due to the susceptibility to abuse (young people pretending to be minors)”. Some countries, like Germany, Portugal, Ireland and Luxembourg claimed that removing the exemption was ‘unacceptable’. However, the Pact was still passed to the next stage with the exemption removed. The UN said such policies could violate its Convention on the Rights of the Child, signed by all EU countries.
The EU continues to look to third countries to help solve its migration mismanagement. The Commission and the Spanish government unveiled yet another bilateral agreement: a 210 million euro deal with Mauritania that will supposedly curb people-smuggling and prevent people from leaving the region. It is worth remembering that the Mauritanian government was involved in the Qatargate cash for influence scandal in the EP and allegedly paid a former MEP 200,000 euros in exchange for help laundering its reputation on human rights, particularly slavery. Its access to the US free trade scheme was also suspended between 2019 and 2024 over concerns about workers’ rights and the use of forced labour. So, there is a reason to suggest that the methods Mauritania will use to stop migrants from crossing the Atlantic might violate human rights.
Meanwhile, the Italian Senate and the Albanian Parliament have ratified the five-year deal which foresees that 3,000 people rescued at sea by Italian ships are detained in centres in Albania for up to 18 months. Amnesty International called on EU institutions to recognise that the deal would create an unlawful and harmful system, and to put a stop to it.
