When the city wakes up the tractor was there. This week, wave of discomfort He wanders the rural world of Europe and turns to steel and smoke in the Valencian Community and Spain. Access cities blocked earlylogistics platforms and surrounded portsand incoming tractor units major streets and political institutions From cities like Castelló, Barcelona or Brussels. The tractor is the power and symbol of protest. Specimens from a huge, fully emerged habitat such as prehistoric animals Expressing itself to a city world that feels forgotten and wrongedIt kept political parties and institutions on alert due to its possible impact on the country. next European elections.
“There’s something like this in his speech: sense of brokenness in relation to the urban world “Who doesn’t understand them or know the conditions they live in,” he explains. Lift-EMV, of the Prensa Ibérica group Ignacio UrquizuProfessor of Sociology at the Complutense of Madrid and resident of that vacant Spain, where Alcañiz is mayor of the town of Teruel. This sense of misunderstanding runs deep and is reflected in many protests in recent years: hunting worldThis was manifested a year ago, with a huge march in Valencia or Germany, a few weeks before the regional elections. taurus worldA situation that has been reaffirmed as a cultural expression in recent years.
And this rupture has political impact. “This is broken affects the left more than the right. Conservative people in both cities and towns are in favor of hunting, bullfighting, the agricultural world… On the other hand, the left in the countryside, if it has a larger mass, has more empathy for these demands than the left in the cities. feeling of brokenness about it. Sumar or Podemos have little rural weight. There is no dent in the fracture on the right. It creates further difficulties in discourse for the left. “This urban/rural divide causes more harm to the left.”It reflects Ignacio Urquizu.
“This is the great topic that Vox has been waiting to get back the lost votes,” he explains. Anna López Ortega, Doctor of Political Science. “It was not a coincidence that the Ministries of Agriculture were chosen in agreement with the PP governments. Just review the programs, events and campaign posters held since 2019. The report on 23J sums it up: “Vote for Campo,” it adds.
This is one of the points of consensus that the wave of rural anger in Europe is disappearing: Fear of instrumentalizing a legitimate discomfort founded by anti-climate and anti-European positions. In an environment where there is a fierce struggle between the PP and Vox for the conservative field and Abascal’s party is in decline, Vox is playing its cards as the major interlocutor of the rural world before the European institutions. It will be clearly visible The meeting to be held in Brussels on the 14th Vox’s four rural advisors to regional governments – Castilla y León, Aragón, Comunitat Valenciana and Extremadura – together with Agriculture and Rural Development Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski, present the key demands of the Spanish primary sector.
“This is nothing new in the global strategies of the far right. Vox copied Le Pen (leader of the historic French National Front) because he knew that the countryside was a constituency to be exploited. Abascal was the only party to attend Asaja’s big demonstration in Madrid last year. Vox has recruited members from the world of bullfighting, as well as agricultural organizations and livestock associations. “Like the Vicente Barrera case in Valencia.”, adds López Ortega. Among the CIS data in which Santiago Abascal received the best marks are farmers.
Rebellion via WhatsApp
Everyone agrees on this. Despite the inequality of demands from the European sphere, the diversity of interests between regions and countries, and even the different ideological sensitivities in approaching the future of agriculture, this widespread protest has a common element: the risk of instrumentalization.
Both Brussels and the excess of bureaucracy and the 2030 Agenda and its impact on agriculture, scapegoats from far-right parties. These two ‘strokes’ also appear on most of the banners hung on tractors these days. One of the agricultural platforms that emerged spontaneously in this wave of unrest used exactly these expressions in a manifesto. 6F platform pantiesRevealed through WhatsApp groupsIt includes a cocktail of extreme positions: Repeal the green deal European passing through abolition of national laws with eliminate subsidies and public support for agricultural organizations. Many followed them out of fatigue, without waiting for the protest calendar prepared by traditional organizations.
Exactly around the second one, Professor of Sociology at UV Antonio Ariño He draws attention to another feature of this widespread and transversal wave of agrarian unrest: the crisis of representation. “We are talking about manufacturers who are formally integrated into large representative organizations. they don’t feel represented. We see that they are not represented by those negotiating with the ministry. And this has sociological significance.” “There is social unrest without political representation “Right now Vox is trying to take advantage of that because there are definitely channels of penetration there,” he adds. And this wave of protest was expressed in part through these alternative channels, anticipating the timetables of traditional organizations. Like a year ago, with the emergence of a new alternative carrier platform led by Manuel Hernandez, Manolin, On this occasion, one of the faces of the agricultural protest Lola Guzmán of ValenciaThose who have attended events with Vox in the past.
Institutions’ response
Apart from these conditions, it is clear that institutions take into account: Macron presented a strong package of measuresVon der Leyen announced that the European Commission’s plan to reduce pesticides by 50% was withdrawn. Context is important, 150 days before an election in which much unrest has coalesced, the European model is in danger and the far right has started with good prospects.
” The results will be alarming. He will win in France and ItalyA significant presence is also expected in Germany and Eastern Europe. “A lot of moderate people, from social democracy to classical conservatism, won’t go out to vote,” he warns. Vicente Pallardó, professor at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Valencia.
Invisible European leadership
This expert in International Economics is clear on where the problem lies. “There is an attempt in the European Commission to provide leadership in the fight against climate change, which may be conceptually very good, but has two problems.. First, we forget the negative repercussions this has on our productive sectors. “And this initial deficit has consequences: it will favor those who disparage this leadership, those who oppose the fight against climate change, which is the far right in Europe,” he notes.
There is a second problem with this European ‘environmental leadership’, which paradoxically affects neither the United States, nor China, nor India, nor anyone else on the planet: “As a result of this process , you’re redirecting production to become more environmentally sustainable, to countries in Europe where it’s done in a less sustainable way. You are attacking not only the European economy but also the global environment.” laments. The expert concludes: “It is truly surprising how little attention is paid to the consequences in Europe’s productive sectors, which evoke so little sensitivity in the European Commission.”