Right-wing populist and far-right parties have predicted a snap election in the European Parliament on 9 June. One of the reasons is the widespread dissatisfaction in the districts. The international journalist community Investigate Europe, which has recently reviewed the results of the last parliamentary elections in 11 countries, shows that far-right parties had the highest share of the vote where no one would think that anyone could vote. Among other things, they visited the village of São Vicente e Ventosa in Portugal. At the last parliamentary election in March, almost half of the inhabitants there voted for the right-wing populist party Chega. On a national basis, the party received 18 percent.
The far-right parties are doing well in out-migration areas characterized by an agricultural economy, with an aging population, who suspect that their heyday is behind them. Many of them have participated in an extensive and supranational peasant revolt in Europe this winter. The farmers demonstrate because their work and products are valued too low, the local environment (schools, roads, health services) is forgotten in the state budgets and all the young people run away to study in Paris, Lisbon or Berlin.
The far-right parties are doing well in out-migration areas characterized by an agricultural economy, with an aging population, who suspect that their heyday is behind them.
A factor that is often overlooked in the discussion about the growth of the far right is the climate issue. In Greece, on the other hand, the peasant revolt has been directly linked to the climate problems. Last winter, at least 8,000 farmers with 130 tractors turned up in Syntagma Square in Athens to express their dissatisfaction, under banners such as “No farmers, no food, no future”. Many of them came from Thessaly in the north of the country, one of the most important agricultural regions in the country. Last September, for the second time in three years, the district experienced extensive flooding and storms, which hit both crops and animals hard.
The farmers demand that the government give them support to cope with the consequences of climate change. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ response was to spend 82 million euros in an attempt to appease the farmers. This includes, among other things, reduced tax on agricultural diesel. Paradoxically enough, since diesel makes it worse.
A factor that is often overlooked in the discussion about the growth of the far right is the climate issue.
Last year was the worst wine year globally in 62 years, we could read in the newspaper last week. Cause? “Extreme environmental conditions”, i.e. drought, forest fires, floods, hail, etc., as stated in a new report from the International Wine Organization (OIV). It fared worst beyond Australia and Italy, whose wine production was reduced by 26 and 23 per cent respectively. Climate change had far more to do with reduced yields and increased prices than inflation and expensive times. For this reason, for example, the well-known and traditionally conservative wine regions of France, Bordeaux and Burgundy, have long ago started experimenting with other grape varieties, which do not produce such powerful wines with excessively high alcohol levels.
Although it doesn’t help much when Burgundy experiences what happened last week, namely that a heavy hailstorm “razed vineyards” in Chablis, as it was said in the NRK case. According to one wine producer, 85-90 percent of some vineyards were destroyed. “Our morale is at rock bottom. We lose the harvest on the fields that are affected, and even if there is a harvest, it will be small,” he said.
Climate change had far more to do with reduced yields and increased prices than inflation and expensive times.
A British report from the autumn of 2023 showed that vegetables will become so expensive in the future that ordinary people will hardly be able to afford to buy them on a daily basis. It concerned products that the British must import, such as cucumbers, tomatoes, lemons, oranges, table grapes, and more. “We are not only facing a climate crisis, but also a health crisis,” as the report’s author told The Guardian. The price of healthy olive oil to put on the salad has also skyrocketed after last year. This is due to prolonged drought in Spain and other Mediterranean countries. Last year was the warmest year on record in Europe, with temperatures above average for 11 out of 12 months.
When farmers’ incomes are reduced due to heat waves, forest fires, prolonged droughts, unruly floods or infernal storms, they direct their frustration at the authorities, who they believe partly do not understand where the shoe is pressing, secondly that they are, in a sense, responsible for the misfortune we have landed in.
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After all, the climate crisis is due to politics – or lack of politics. The problem is supranational and must be solved at system level, while the consequences are individual and local. “We want the government to give us solutions to our problems. We are not only fighting for our own survival, we are fighting for everyone,” as Greek peasant rebel Spyros Hatzis told the Reuters news agency in Syntagma Square.
A British report from the autumn of 2023 showed that vegetables will become so expensive in the future that ordinary people will hardly be able to afford to buy them on a daily basis.
In the same way that many rural voters who depend on foreign labor for harvesting are against immigration, you see that many farmers who today are hit particularly hard by climate change are also against all forms of climate restrictions. Right-wing populist parties appeal here with their anti-politician and climate-denying agenda.
How we have ended up in a situation where climate measures are perceived as a threat to the future by those who live off the land and are dead dependent on predictability, is a mystery. But responsible politicians must crack the code soon and enter into a productive alliance with the peasant rebels in order to combat climate change. No farmers, no food, no future.
Also read: Young men choose blue. Now the women are following suit
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