ATHENS — Greek farmers are begging for vaccines to save their flocks from sheep pox, and Brussels is offering them for free. But the Athens government doesn’t want them, preferring to cull infected animals. That’s all very bad news for feta cheese fans. Sheep pox is so infectious that global farming regulations require whole herds to be slaughtered immediately after even a single case is detected. Since the first case emerged in a northern region of Greece in 2024, authorities have culled more than 470,000 sheep and goats and closed some 2,500 farms nationwide. The country’s livestock breeding industry is now on the verge of collapse — endangering the trademark white cheese, into which producers pour 80 percent of the country’s sheep and goat milk. “If there is no immediate response, feta cheese will become a luxury item,” said Vaso Fasoula, a sheep farmer in Greece’s agricultural heartland of Thessaly, who has confined her 2,500 sheep to protect them from the contagion. An alternative to all this killing: vaccines, available free from Brussels. “Vaccination is the only additional measure that can stop the occurrence of new outbreaks, limit further spread to the rest of Greece and reduce the number of animals to be killed,” wrote Animal Welfare Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi to Athens last year. Yet the government has repeatedly rejected this option, citing the steep financial consequences and damage to exports. That refusal to embrace wide-scale prevention measures has infuriated farmers and is fueling further tensions with Brussels over an agriculture subsidy scandal — all while putting one of Greece’s most famous exports at risk. Farmers and livestock breeders have been blocking national highways all over the country for the last 40 days in one of the biggest mobilizations the country has experienced in recent years. Mass vaccination is among their demands, and they have said they won’t leave the roadblocks until the vaccination campaign starts. Behind the government’s refusal to vaccinate, critics allege, are not only misguided priorities but also a corruption cover-up. ANTI-VAX Sheep pox vaccines would be free, but they would nonetheless come at a high cost. Greek Agriculture Minister Konstantinos Tsiaras said a nationwide vaccine initiative would see Greece classified as a country where sheep pox is endemic. That could jeopardize exports, given the desperation of other countries to keep the bug beyond their borders. “Our scientists are clear,” Tsiaras said in October. “They do not recommend vaccination. Farmers are in a difficult position, but we cannot do anything other than follow the scientific guidance.” While a sheep pox declaration means restrictions on exporting animals — the virus can live in wool for up to six months — shipments of treated milk products like feta cheese would be less affected. Τhe trademark salty, white, crumbly delight — a protected designation of origin within the EU — is a major economic driver. Greece produces over 97,000 tons of feta annually, more than two-thirds of which is exported. The country netted a record €785 million from feta sales in 2024. Livestock breeders say the price of feta cheese has already increased significantly and will rise even further in the spring when the shortage becomes apparent. (The feta cheese currently on the market has been produced from milk from previous months.) Yet the government is standing firm against livestock jabs. “There is no approved vaccine in Greece,” said Charalampos Billinis, rector at the University of Thessaly and a member of the government’s national scientific committee for the management and control of sheep pox. “And there is no approved vaccine in the European Union.” That’s true — but it doesn’t mean there’s no safe, effective inoculation against sheep pox. Because the disease has not circulated in the EU for decades, manufacturers have not asked the European Medicines Agency to greenlight a vaccine. “This is a standard situation for animal diseases not usually present in the EU,” a Commission spokesperson said in an email. “No manufacturer has economic interest in obtaining marketing authorisation as they do not expect specific diseases to spread.” That’s why EU legislation offers a path for member countries to use vaccines that are approved in other parts of the world when animal diseases re-appear in the bloc, the spokesperson said. Plenty of doses of just such vaccines are available in EU stockpiles, and Brussels is urging Greece to repeat its success from the 1980s, when it used the vaccine to shut down a sheep pox outbreak. “Experience, science and veterinary expertise further support the need to revert to vaccination in Greece now,” Várhelyi wrote to the government in October in a letter seen by POLITICO. That’s where a fundamental disagreement arises. As Billinis argued, exposing the animals to the virus via the vaccine would increase positive testing rates, further prolonging trade restrictions, when the virus can still be contained in other ways. Farmers don’t buy it. “This disease is not leaving Greece; it has come to stay and without the vaccine, it will not go away,” said George Terzakis, president of a local livestock association in Thessaly. He’s among the breeders who allege the government’s vaccine skepticism isn’t so much about science as their desire to hide the full implications of a snowballing farm scandal. The European Public Prosecutor’s Office is pursuing dozens of cases in which Greeks allegedly received agricultural funds from the EU for pastureland they did not own or lease, or for animals they did not own, depriving legitimate farmers and livestock breeders of the funds they deserved. POLITICO first reported on the scheme in February. “If our animals were vaccinated, the number of doses used would reveal the country’s real animal population,” Terzakis said. “Everything is being done because of the scandal.” When asked about the allegation, government spokesperson Pavlos Marinakis said Athens had “faithfully followed European directives, which are the result of all the recommendations that, at the end of the day, led to specific decisions.” FLOODS AND PLAGUES As the infection spreads, families who have lived with their sheep and goats for generations are watching them vanish in a day, buried in large pits — many times on their land. Some have turned to illegal vaccination. The government estimates that one million illegal doses have been used, distorting epidemiological data. The broader region of Thessaly, which produces a quarter of the country’s food, was hit by devastating floods in 2023, followed the next year by an outbreak of sheep and goat plague and then sheep pox. “The disease spread like wildfire. We didn’t have any time to react,” said Dimitris Papaziakas, a breeder from a village close to Larissa city in central Greece and president of an association of livestock farmers affected by smallpox and plague. In mid-November he had to watch his 350 sheep be culled and then buried outside his sheep pen. “I cannot recall that day without starting to cry all over again,” he said. In one village, Koulouri, only one out of 10 units remains operational. Fasoula, the sheep farmer who penned her 2,500 sheep in May, is still keeping the infection at bay in nearby Amfithea. She constantly disinfects the cars and everything else on the farm, hoping for the best. But she’s concerned about how the animals were buried along the banks of a river. “If there is another flood, everything that has been buried will come to the surface.”

BRUSSELS — Spanish center-right lawmakers have quietly pulled back from their once-robust public support for the EU–Mercosur trade deal, sending jitters through the European People’s Party as backers warn the agreement could now be in serious trouble. The mammoth trade deal, which has been in the making for 25 years, will be formally sealed when European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen flies to Paraguay on Saturday to sign it. But the accord still requires a formal green light from the European Parliament before it can enter into force. The shift by the Spanish center right will deliver a first test for the Mercosur accord by as early as next week. MEPs are due to vote on Wednesday on motions calling to refer the text to the Court of Justice of the European Union to review whether it complies with the bloc’s treaties — a process that could take up to two years. Only if the deal receives the necessary backing would it then go forward for a consent vote later this year, where a majority would again be needed for it to go into effect. With support breaking along national, rather than party lines, a defection by the Spanish center right threatens to turn next week into a cliffhanger. Spanish People’s Party (PP) president, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, telegraphed the shift in position at a party rally last weekend, when he declared Spain’s “farmers are right.” His statement reflected broader concerns that farmers could be undercut by an influx of produce from the South American bloc. While stopping short of rejecting the deal outright, Feijóo said Spanish farmers were right to demand “more control over what comes from abroad,” and “fair trade agreements with guarantees — guarantees that will be honored.” “We are the party of the countryside, the party of farmers,” Feijóo added. “The one that defends them, the one that listens to them, and the one that makes real policy for them.” Alberto Nadal, the PP’s vice-secretary for economic affairs, was more explicit in a post on X in which he said the party will “only support the EU-Mercosur agreement if safeguards are guaranteed and border controls are strengthened.” The PP’s press departments in Brussels and Madrid did not respond to repeated requests to clarify what these statements mean for the party’s voting intentions in the European Parliament. Direct requests for comment to the party’s top EU lawmakers went similarly unanswered. SPANISH PIVOT The pivot from the Spanish lawmakers, traditionally the staunchest supporters of deepening ties with Latin America, reflects the sky-high pressure building upon the European Parliament.  In the Parliament’s hallways, EPP lawmakers from other countries have noticed the shift. “We always thought they were rock solid, but then lately there was some nervousness,” said one senior MEP, who was granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive situation. They added that the Spaniards had not expressed themselves directly to the group yet but expressed confidence they will ultimately support the deal. “It seems they have a heated internal debate ongoing,” one EPP official said. “Members of the group are feeling the heat of farmers and the Spaniards have three elections upcoming.” French, Polish, and Austrian center-right lawmakers are opposed to the deal over concerns it will hurt farmers.  A second center-right MEP warned that a Spanish rejection of the deal “would be the end” of Mercosur, adding that Madrid’s backing is as instrumental as that of Germany’s, which both countries described as the “motor” of the agreement. Were they to turn against the deal, the Spaniards — who are the second biggest national delegation within the EPP, with 22 seats in the hemicycle — could blow the deal as a whole. The vote is expected to be tight, with four Parliament officials from the EPP, S&D, and Renew groups agreeing the result will be “50-50,” with a margin of just a few votes.  DOMESTIC PRESSURES The PP’s doubts about the Mercosur deal are driven by electoral considerations at home. Regional elections are set to be held in Aragón on Feb. 8, in Castille and León on March 15, and in Andalucía later this spring, and the rural vote is decisive. The Aragonese economy depends on livestock,  Castille and León is Spain’s breadbasket and Andalucía is the country’s largest agricultural producer. Ever since Brussels announced the Mercosur deal, farmers and ranchers in all three regions have taken part in major protests, and even larger mobilizations are planned for the coming weeks. The far-right Vox party — which is already the third-largest group in the Spanish parliament, and which continues to grow in the polls — is actively campaigning against the agreement, which it argues “turns its back on thousands of Spanish producers [by allowing]  the massive influx of foreign products.” It is also using the issue to characterize the PP as a mainstream political force that is virtually identical to the governing Socialist Party, and that does not fight for the interests of average voters. That’s a big problem for the PP, which is desperate to score governing majorities in Aragón, Castille and León, and Andalucía and deal fresh defeats to Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s weak minority government. Spain’s left-wing coalition is in dire straits, lacking sufficient support to pass legislation or a fresh budget, and there are doubts that it will remain in power until national elections scheduled to be held in July 2027. Major Socialist losses in Aragón, Castille and León, and Andalucía would increase pressure on Sánchez to call snap elections, but the PP is itself under pressure to score decisive majority wins in both regions. The party is wary of having to form coalition governments with Vox, as it did in the Balearic Islands, Extremadura, Aragon, Valencia and Murcia following nationwide regional elections in 2023. That summer, that partnership became a major liability when Sánchez called snap elections and based his successful campaign on the fear that a vote for the PP amounted to a vote for a far-right national government. Aitor Hernández-Morales reported from Madrid.

Officially, the EU’s Mercosur trade deal is a defeat for Europe’s farmers. In reality, farm lobbies just can’t stop winning. EU countries endorsed the bloc’s long-delayed agreement with South American nations on Friday, clearing the way for European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to fly to Paraguay later this week and close a deal that has haunted Brussels for more than two decades. The agreement is going through despite tractor protests, border blockades and fierce opposition from farm groups and capitals including Paris and Warsaw. But the price of getting Mercosur over the line was steep. In the run-up to the endorsement, Brussels quietly stacked the deck in farmers’ favor. Import safeguards were hardened. Controls tightened. And last week, the Commission unveiled a €45 billion budget maneuver allowing governments to shift more money to farmers under the EU’s next long-term budget. Taken together, the concessions mean Mercosur will enter into force wrapped in protections and paired with a farm budget settlement that leaves the sector stronger than before. “Other sectors complain,” said one Commission official involved in agricultural policy. “Farmers block roads.” The official, like others in this story, was granted anonymity to speak freely. The blunt assessment captures a familiar reality inside the EU institutions. Farmers may represent a shrinking share of Europe’s economy, but they remain one of its most powerful political constituencies, capable of reshaping trade deals, budgets and reform agendas even when they fail to block them outright. Ultimately, to get Mercosur over the line, Brussels had to back away from plans to loosen farmers’ grip on the EU budget and shift money to other priorities. PRESSURE THAT WORKS The leverage farm leaders wield rests on more than theatrics. Few officials in Brussels dispute that large parts of the sector are under real strain. Farm incomes are volatile. Costs for fuel, fertilizer and feed have surged. Weather has become harder to predict. Working days are long and isolation is common in hollowing rural communities. “I understand the anger,” Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen told POLITICO in an interview last month, as Brussels prepared for tractors to roll into the EU quarter. Christophe Hansen said the Commission had “heard the concerns of farmers” and responded with “strong and unprecedented support measures.” | Photo by Omar Havana/Getty Images Sympathy for farmers runs high across much of Europe, tied not just to economics but to culture, place and identity. That has always made farm subsidies one of the most politically sensitive lines in the EU budget — and one the Commission knew would be hardest to touch. That sensitivity was on display again last week, when agriculture ministers traveled to Brussels for a hastily convened meeting outside the formal calendar, called in response to farmer protests only weeks earlier. Inside, the language was ritualistic. Praise for farmers. Assurances they were being listened to. Repeated references to unprecedented safeguards and financial backing. Hansen summed it up afterward, saying the Commission had “heard the concerns of farmers” and responded with “strong and unprecedented support measures.” REFORM MEETS REALITY This outcome marks a sharp reversal of earlier ambitions inside the Commission. It’s also a reminder of just how high the stakes are when farm subsidies are in play. The Common Agricultural Policy remains the single largest line in the EU budget, absorbing roughly a third of total spending and anchoring a political contract that dates back to the bloc’s postwar foundations. Public money, in exchange for food security and rural stability, has long been one of Europe’s core bargains. That bargain has survived decades of reform. The CAP has been trimmed, greened and made more market-oriented. But its central promise — that farming would be protected — has never disappeared. After von der Leyen’s re-election in 2024, officials quietly explored loosening how tightly farm spending is locked into the EU budget. Draft ideas for the post-2027 budget would have made farm funds more flexible and easier to redirect to priorities such as defense, climate transition or industrial policy. It was a technocrat’s answer to a crowded budget. It did not survive contact with politics. The proposal landed as farm incomes came under pressure from rising costs, climate volatility and disease outbreaks. Tractors returned to Europe’s streets. Agriculture ministers closed ranks, warning of political fallout in rural heartlands. Farm lobbies mobilized in force. Hansen spent much of his first year in office traveling to farms and meeting unions, describing agriculture as a strategic asset and warning of a “convergence of pressures” hitting the sector. Behind closed doors, he fought to keep large chunks of farm funding protected. Tractors park in front of the Arc de Triomphe during a demonstration of the French agricultural union Coordination Rurale (CR) in Paris, France, on January 8, 2026. | Jerome Gilles/NurPhoto via Getty Images Those efforts didn’t calm farmers’ anger. Instead, pressure became constant, feeding into a series of concessions that steadily narrowed the scope for reform. First came assurances that most farm spending would remain ring-fenced in the post-2027 budget. Then came a new rural spending target, designed to funnel more money back into countryside projects. Last week, to get the Mercosur deal over the line, the Commission went further, proposing that farmers get early access to up to €45 billion from a broader cash pot the EU would have been saving for a rainy day. In effect, much of the post-2027 EU farm budget is on track to be sealed at levels approaching today’s, before negotiations have even begun in earnest. LOSING THE TRADE FIGHT, WINNING THE POLITICS The €45 billion now being front-loaded was originally conceived as crisis insurance. After the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Brussels concluded that future EU budgets needed more flexibility to respond quickly to shocks. Money reserved for incremental spending reviews was meant to be the first line of defense in the next crisis. If national capitals embrace the Commission’s proposal, much of that money would be locked in for farmers before the cycle even starts, leaving less for other priority areas. Mercosur became the perfect vehicle for that pressure. Long championed by industrial exporters, the deal turned into shorthand for everything farmers fear about global competition and loss of control. The reality is more uneven. Some EU farmers, particularly in high-end food, wine and dairy, stand to gain from better access to Mercosur markets. Others, especially in beef and poultry, face tougher competition. Yet even there, trade analysts have long dismissed fears of South American goods flooding the EU as exaggerated. But nuance rarely survives a protest banner, and even the unprecedented concessions haven’t stopped farmers from protesting. The EU’s largest farm lobby, Copa-Cogeca, said Friday that the process of getting the Mercosur deal across the line “erodes trust in European governance, democratic processes and parliamentary scrutiny at a time when institutional credibility is already under strain.” The group said it would continue mobilizing farmers. Privately, Commission officials express frustration about the farm lobbies’ hardening demands.  One said that even though Brussels bends over backwards to meet farmers’ demands, every concession still falls short for farm leaders. Another pointed to Commissioner Hansen’s efforts to engage in direct dialogue with farmers across the EU. “And still, they talk as if we had done nothing,” the official said, referring directly to Copa-Cogeca. For now, farm leaders are winning.  Von der Leyen might be boarding that plane to South America. But when she returns to Brussels, they will already be gearing up for the next fight, confident they can lose the trade battle and still bend Europe’s policy in their favor.

BRUSSELS — The European Commission has proposed rolling back several EU environmental laws including industrial emissions reporting requirements, confirming previous reporting by POLITICO. It’s the latest in a series of proposed deregulation plans — known as omnibus bills — as Commission President Ursula von der Leyen tries to make good on a promise to EU leaders to dramatically reduce administrative burden for companies.   The bill’s aim is to make it easier for businesses to comply with EU laws on waste management, emissions, and resource use, with the Commission stressing the benefits to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) which make up 99 percent of all EU businesses. The Commission insisted the rollbacks would not have a negative impact on the environment. “We all agree that we need to protect our environmental standards, but we also at the same time need to do it more efficiently,” said Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall during a press conference on Wednesday.  “This is a complex exercise,” said Executive Vice President Teresa Ribera during a press conference on Wednesday. “It is not easy for anyone to try to identify how we can respond to this demand to simplify while responding to this other demand to keep these [environmental] standards high.”  Like previous omnibus packages, the environmental omnibus was released without an impact assessment. The Commission found that “without considering other alternative options, an impact assessment is not deemed necessary.” This comes right after the Ombudswoman found the Commission at fault for “maladministration” for the first omnibus.   The Commission claims “the proposed amendments will not affect environmental standards” — a claim that’s already under attack from environmental groups.   MORE REPORTING CUTS  The Commission wants to exempt livestock and aquaculture operators from reporting on water, energy and materials use under the industrial emissions reporting legislation.  EU countries, competent authorities and operators would also be given more time to comply with some of the new or revised provisions in the updated Industrial Emissions Directive while being given further “clarity on when these provisions apply.”  The Commission is also proposing “significant simplification” for environmental management systems (EMS) — which lay out goals and performance measures related to environmental impacts of an industrial site — under the industrial and livestock rearing emissions directive.  These would be completed by industrial plants at the level of a company and not at the level of every installation, as it currently stands.   There would also be fewer compliance obligations under EU waste laws.   The Commission wants to remove the Substances of Concern in Products (SCIP) database, for example, claiming that it “has not been effective in informing recyclers about the presence of hazardous substances in products and has imposed substantial administrative costs.”  Producers selling goods in another EU country will also not have to appoint an authorized representative in both countries to comply with extended producer responsibility (EPR). The Commission calls it a “stepping stone to more profound simplification,” also reducing reporting requirements to just once per year.  The Commission will not be changing the Nature Restoration Regulation — which has been a key question in discussions between EU commissioners — but it will intensify its support to EU countries and regional authorities in preparing their draft National Restoration Plans.  The Commission will stress-test the Birds and Habitats Directives in 2026 “taking into account climate change, food security, and other developments and present a series of guidelines to facilitate implementation,” it said.  CRITIQUES ROLL IN   Some industry groups, like the Computer & Communications Industry Association, have welcomed the changes, calling it a “a common-sense fix.” German center-right MEP Pieter Liese also welcomed the omnibus package, saying, “[W]e need to streamline environmental laws precisely because we want to preserve them. Bureaucracy and paperwork are not environmental protection.” But environmental groups opposed the rollbacks.  “The Von der Leyen Commission is dismantling decades of hard-won nature protections, putting air, water, and public health at risk in the name of competitiveness,” WWF said in a statement. The estimated savings “come with no impact assessment and focus only on reduced compliance costs, ignoring the far larger price of pollution, ecosystem decline, and climate-related disasters,” it added.   The Industrial Emissions Directive, which entered into force last year and is already being transposed by member countries, was “already much weaker than what the European Commission had originally proposed” during the last revision, pointed out ClientEarth lawyer Selin Esen.  “The Birds and Habitats Directives are the backbone of nature protection in Europe,” said BirdLife Europe’s Sofie Ruysschaert. “Undermining them now would not only wipe out decades of hard-won progress but also push the EU toward a future where ecosystems and the communities that rely on them are left dangerously exposed.” 

BRUSSELS — The Danish farm minister is determined to spend some of his remaining political capital on the plight of millions of piglets rumbling across the continent packed into semitrucks. The European Commission’s 2023 plan to ease the suffering of farm animals on the move started out as the ultimate feel-good proposal. But two years later, the ambition for stricter limits on travel times, more space in trucks and a ban on long journeys in extreme heat is stuck in the slow lane. After years of farmer unrest and mounting pressure to boost Europe’s competitiveness, politicians have grown wary of new costs or constraints on industry. Across the bloc, social and environmental rules are being softened, delayed or quietly dropped. The animal transport reform, which would not only raise costs but upend much of Europe’s livestock trade, is now on a collision course with the deregulatory drive. Few in Brussels believe it can be saved. But Danish Agriculture Minister Jacob Jensen, now chairing capitals’ negotiations for a few more months, is determined to try. OVERDUE UPDATE Every year, around 1.6 billion farm animals, mainly pigs, cows and sheep, are loaded onto trucks and shipped across the EU for fattening or slaughter, in a trade worth some €8.6 billion for the livestock industry. Animal welfare barely registered in EU politics two decades ago, when Brussels last updated its rules for livestock transport. Yet amid recurring reports of animals collapsing from exhaustion or drowning in their own waste, the Commission floated more protections in December 2023. Since then, they’ve been buried under thousands of amendments in the European Parliament. Romanian conservative Daniel Buda, one of the lead negotiators, has made arguments that flatly contradict scientific evidence, claiming that packing animals closer together makes them safer or that giving them more space would undermine the EU’s climate goals. In the Council of the EU, most governments would rather see the file disappear altogether. Member countries have been at odds over how to handle transport in hot weather, the movement of young calves and — most explosively — journey time limits. Animal welfare barely registered in EU politics two decades ago, when Brussels last updated its rules for livestock transport. | Arnaud Finistre/Getty Images Copenhagen, which took over the rotating Council presidency in July, says it’s found a pragmatic way to keep the reform alive. Jensen, the farm minister, told POLITICO he sees “good progress” in technical negotiations, including on how animals are handled, watered and fed during transport, even as the journey time limits debate remains frozen. “It’s not correct to say there’s no progress,” Jensen said in a telephone interview. “If the conditions are good, if animals have ventilation, water and trained handlers, it matters less whether it’s one or two hours longer.” AN UNLIKELY CHAMPION It’s a message that captures Denmark’s paradox. The Nordic country is one of Europe’s largest exporters of live animals, sending some 13 million piglets a year to other EU states. Yet it has also been among the bloc’s loudest voices for tougher welfare rules, even calling for a full ban on live exports to third countries ahead of the Commission’s proposal. Now, isolated on that front, it is trying to salvage the weaker Commission draft by making it workable enough to pass. That instinct for compromise isn’t new. Last year, Denmark became the first country to agree a tax on greenhouse gas emissions from farming — with farmers’ backing. For Jensen, who helped broker that deal, the lesson is that even the most sensitive agricultural reforms can stick if they’re built on pragmatism rather than punishment. That balancing act has turned Denmark into the unlikely custodian of one of Europe’s most moral — and most toxic — legislative files. At home, hauliers call the reform “pure nonsense” and “detached from reality.” Farmers complain their standards already exceed those of many peers. Yet Copenhagen hasn’t flinched, arguing that harmonized EU rules could finally level the playing field. “We need to find the right balance,” Jensen said. “It has to improve animal welfare, but it cannot be so burdensome that cross-border transport becomes impossible.” The Commission’s draft would cap journeys for slaughter animals at nine hours, ban daytime travel during heat waves and tighten space allowances. Welfare advocates say even that falls short of what animal health research shows is needed to prevent suffering. But after years of stalemate, Denmark’s incrementalism may be the only path left. Jensen insists that simply enforcing the bloc’s existing rules, as the reform’s critics propose, wouldn’t be enough to improve conditions for transported animals. “If this negotiation does not improve animal welfare,” he said, “there’s no need to have it at all.” Whether his slow-and-steady strategy works will depend on how much patience Europe has left. The Parliament remains gridlocked and a new round of protests could easily bury the file again. The reform is by no means “home safe,” Jensen admitted. Denmark just wants to “come as far as we can” before handing it off to Cyprus, which takes over the EU presidency in January and hasn’t exactly been among the vocal champions of tougher transport rules. “Hopefully they can do the final job,” he said. Lucia Mackenzie contributed to this report.

ATHENS — Greek authorities made dozens of arrests on Wednesday related to Greece’s spiraling farm fraud case, in an investigation led by European prosecutors. Some 37 people suspected of being members of an organized criminal group involved in large-scale agricultural funding fraud and money laundering activities were arrested, and searches were carried out throughout the country, according to a statement by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office. In a snowballing scandal, the EPPO is pursuing dozens of cases in which Greeks allegedly received agricultural funds from the European Union for pastureland they did not own or lease, or for agricultural work they did not perform, depriving legitimate farmers of the funds they deserved. POLITICO first reported on the scheme in February. Several ministers and deputy ministers have resigned over their alleged involvement in the scandal. The EU has already fined Athens €400 million after finding evidence of systemic failings in the handling of farm subsidies from 2016 through to 2023. Greece also risks losing its EU farm subsidies unless it provides an improved action plan on how it will stop funds being siphoned off into corruption. The original deadline was Oct. 2, but this has now been pushed back to Nov. 4. “The Commission is awaiting the submission of the revised action plan and in the meantime, it continues to be in contact with the Greek authorities,” a European Commission spokesperson told POLITICO earlier this month. Wednesday’s operation centered on a criminal network accused of illegally obtaining EU farm subsidies through false declarations submitted to the organization in charge of distributing EU farm funds in Greece, OPEKEPE. According to the EPPO, in the course of the preliminary investigation, 324 individuals were identified as subsidy recipients, causing an estimated cost of more than €19.6 million to the EU budget. Of these, 42 are believed to be involved in this case and are considered current members of the criminal group, says the EPPO. Most of them appear to have no actual connection to farming or producing, according to the Greek and EU authorities. The EPPO said that, at least since 2018, the group “allegedly exploited procedural gaps” in the submission of applications using falsified or misleading documents to claim agricultural subsidies from OPEKEPE. They are suspected of fraudulently declaring pastureland that did not belong to them or did not meet eligibility criteria. They allegedly inflated livestock numbers to increase their subsidy entitlements. To conceal the illicit origin of the proceeds, they are believed to have issued fictitious invoices, routed the funds through multiple bank accounts, and mixed them with legitimate income. Part of the misappropriated money was allegedly spent on luxury goods, travel and vehicles, to disguise the funds as lawful assets. Greece’s anti-money laundering authority is investigating Giorgos Xylouris, a farmer from Crete and until recently member of ruling New Democracy. Xylouris is one of the key characters mentioned in EPPO case files, under the nickname Frappé (“Iced Coffee”), regarding the OPEKEPE scandal. Some €2.5 million was discovered in his bank accounts during a random inspection, the Greek officials said. Authorities found that Xylouris had failed to submit the required financial documentation and could not justify the large sum. Eight vehicles were also identified in his possession, including a Jaguar luxury car. The case file has been sent to the prosecutors to examine possible violations of anti-bribery laws and an investigation is ongoing regarding whether money laundering has occurred.

CARDIFF, Wales — At the edge of a sprawling wheat field on the outskirts of Cardiff, arable farmer Richard Anthony sticks a shovel in the ground and offers up a fistful of soil for a sniff.  “The first thing [I do when] I walk into a field: I catch a handful of soil,” he says. “[The] first thing I do is smell it, to see if it smells healthy.” His mind is on climate change. The clump in his palm is indeed healthy — but it’s dry. It comes at the tail end of an unusually hot spring. Anthony and his wife, Lyn, are planting crops in increasingly short “weather windows,” dodging the wet days of the previous fall. “It does worry me,” he told POLITICO, acres of wheat plants swaying behind him. “But we, as farmers, have always had to adapt. And we’re having to adapt to climate change.” Farmers like the Anthonys are looking for guidance from the Senedd — the Labour-led devolved Welsh parliament down the road in Cardiff Bay. “Farming is seen as the biggest problem with climate change, and we’re not. We’re the only industry that can actually do something about it,” Anthony said. But Welsh ministers’ key environmental plans are in disarray, delayed for over a year after farmers angrily rejected proposals they say would hit jobs and livelihoods. Annoying farmers is bad news for Labour in Wales, a country where 90 percent of land is given over to agriculture. And it has consequences in Westminster, too, for a U.K. government that can’t afford another political bloody nose. Welsh national elections next May will be a crucial mid-term litmus test for the appeal of Keir Starmer’s embattled Labour. The 2026 Senedd vote is seen by party leaders in London “as a staging post between now and [the general election in] 2029,” said one Welsh union boss in February. Labour is going backward in Wales.  Welsh polls published Tuesday show Labour, in charge at the Senedd since 1999, dropping to third place, losing support to both populists Reform UK and nationalists Plaid Cymru. The party is being punished, experts say, for its own perceived inertia and a far too cozy relationship with Westminster. “The Welsh government are in a very difficult situation, in that both they are unpopular as incumbents and they’re also paying a price for the unpopularity of the U.K. Labour government,” said Jac Larner, a politics lecturer at Cardiff University. “So at the moment there is a general resistance, I think, to taking any tough decisions.”  THE CLIMATE MOMENT Faltering climate policy contributes to the sense that Welsh ministers are “losing perceptions of competence,” Larner argued. The challenge is substantial. Within the next decade, agriculture could become Wales’ largest source of emissions. To hit a U.K.-wide target of net zero by 2050, most emissions cuts will have to come from high-polluting sectors like farming. The Welsh government’s solution is the Sustainable Farming Scheme (SFS) — a program designed to help farmers adopt low-carbon activities like planting more trees. The thinking is that with the offer of cash, farmers will dedicate more of their land to mopping up planet-wrecking emissions, making the most of its natural potential to sequester carbon and store it deep in the soil. Wales should reap the benefits of these “natural carbon sinks,” says the U.K.’s independent climate advisers, the Climate Change Committee.  But ministers paused the SFS roll-out after initial plans, published in December 2023, provoked protests and a backlash over a draft 10 percent tree-planting target, which farmers said would cost thousands of agricultural jobs. The Welsh government says details will now be finalized this summer, with the scheme up and running in 2026. With 90 percent of its land used for farming, Wales is seeing instability over climate and agriculture policy. | Abby Wallace/POLITICO “I think we’ve come from such a bad place, it’s going to be quite hard to lift it back up,” said Abi Reader, a dairy farmer and deputy president of the National Farmers Union Cymru.  Behind Reader, on her farm in the Cardiff town of Wenvoe, a large shed groans as rows of cattle diligently shuffle into the parlour, waiting to be hooked up to clinking machines for milking. “It’s difficult to say whether we should be signing up to it [the SFS] or not, because we’ve got no details of any of the costings,” Reader said.  “We’re all business people at the end of the day and, you know, we’ve all already done our budgets for next year. And there’s nothing to go to a bank manager with and say: ‘I want to borrow this, or can you support me for that?’” ‘BANG, BANG, KICK A MAN’ The SFS has caused unrest on another politically sensitive topic: livestock. A Welsh government estimate suggested the scheme could reduce livestock numbers by as much as 120,000. If ministers in Cardiff follow separate CCC advice published in May — on how to hit climate goals by 2033 — cattle and sheep numbers in Wales need to fall by nearly a fifth. Some of this will come from wider trends toward lower meat and dairy consumption — but it will also be driven by policies like the SFS, which incentivize farmers to rely less on livestock. The Welsh government must “engage with farmers and their communities, and support them to diversify their incomes,” the CCC said. This advice has spooked farmers, who see a threat to years of family-owned businesses. “Would that mean I’d have to move away from here?” asked third-generation beef farmer Tom Rees in his kitchen in Cowbridge, gesturing to the fields beyond the window where his father and grandfather also farmed. His farm slopes downhill toward a patch of land that often floods when a neighboring river overflows. It’s sliced up into rectangular fields by colorful hedgerows that act as corridors for local wildlife and as shelter for his cows on sunny days — but planting hedges isn’t how Rees wants to earn a living. “I went to college to study agriculture, to come on the farm because I wanted to produce food,” he said. “I don’t want to plant a woodland.” Rees hopes to pass the farm on to his 15-month-old son Henry — but is worried about uncertainty over the SFS, as well as issues around bovine tuberculosis and inheritance tax changes. He said: “Dad’s left the farm in a better place than when he took it on. We want to take it on a bit further, so we could leave it for Henry. … [But] with the government in Westminster and the government in the Senedd — you just really feel, Why are we bothering? “It’s bang, bang, kick a man while you’re down. That’s what it feels like, and that’s what a lot of farmers feel like in Wales.” The Welsh government refused to comment on the SFS, confirming only that details will be published this month. A spokesperson said the government is “reviewing” the CCC’s advice, which will inform decisions on a new climate goal for Wales before the end of the year. “We’re trying to take forward a future for agriculture in Wales, which is to do with thriving, living businesses and communities within Wales,” Huw Irranca-Davies, Wales’ cabinet secretary for climate change and rural affairs, told POLITICO in an interview last year. ANNOYING VOTERS Labour’s support has traditionally been low in rural Wales, where votes flow instead to the Conservatives or Plaid Cymru. But the mess over agricultural policies is deepening Labour’s woes, argued Cardiff University’s Larner. “By annoying these people, you kind of block off the possibility that any of these people at all will vote Labour,” he said, “So it’s just a kind of narrowing of the vote pool in which you can fish for extra voters come other elections.” Meantime, Plaid Cymru and Reform are making their pitches to rural voters. “You have to take the farmers with you on this journey. And that’s one lesson, I think, that the Welsh government has learned the hard way,” said Llyr Gruffydd, Senedd member for North Wales and Plaid’s agriculture and rural affairs spokesperson. Plaid will “reassess” the SFS when more details are published, Gruffydd said. His party is not about to announce plans to “plow a different furrow,” he said, but he didn’t rule out ditching the unpopular scheme either. When Plaid sees the plans, Gruffydd argued, it can decide “whether this is something that we can pursue, whether we feel we need to amend it — or, God forbid, whether we have to say, let’s get back to the drawing board.” Nigel Farage’s Reform, riding high in the polls and fresh from smashing Labour in local elections in May, wants to scrap net-zero targets altogether. “Farmers want lower costs to stay afloat. Net stupid zero adds costs for no benefit,” said Deputy Leader Richard Tice. Reform is set to benefit, too, from anger over the fate of Welsh steelmaking. Thousands of job losses loom at the Port Talbot plant as it shifts to a lower-emitting electric arc furnace, a political gift to Farage when he argues that climate-friendly policies wreck traditional industries. “That’s the one big example we’ve seen of net-zero related policy, and is one of loss of jobs with not very much put in place to support workers to do anything different,” said Joe Rossiter, co-director at the Institute of Welsh Affairs. “When it all shakes out, I do think the fight will be Labour vs. Reform for the top spot,” said one Labour insider who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. The U.K. government “has been completely focused on making sure the transition to green steelmaking is as good as it can be.” Asked about the example of Port Talbot, Reader, the dairy farmer, was nervous about the precedent it set for other climate policies. “If they damage Welsh agriculture in the same way [as steel], I think that’s really letting down Wales,” she said.  ALL IN IT TOGETHER The Welsh government’s other big problem? It has cuddled up so tightly to Westminster that Labour’s performance in Cardiff will rebound in London and vice-versa. “There’s no ‘other’ for them to blame, because they’ve tied themselves very closely, rhetorically as well, to the U.K. government,” Larner said. Some Welsh Labour MPs defend the U.K. government’s record. “If you look at the amount of money that the Labour Party is investing in the agricultural sector, that shows a huge commitment to the industry,” said Henry Tufnell, Labour MP for Pembrokeshire. After months spent arguing the benefits of having Labour governments in both Cardiff and London, Senedd First Minister Eluned Morgan in May pivoted to emphasize the divide between them. Expect more attempts to put “clear red water” between the two camps, Larner said. Yet when Starmer addressed the Welsh Labour conference in north Wales last month, the old closeness was back. “Next year it’s a clear choice. Two Labour governments working together for the people of Wales … or risk rolling back all the progress we are making,” the prime minister said. As Starmer spoke, a clutch of farmers protested outside. ‘Starmer: farmer harmer,’ read one placard. Voters will say soon enough what they make of that bond between Labour in Wales and Westminster.

BRUSSELS — French President Emmanuel Macron says a new law may be required to allow more wild wolves to be shot in France, taking advantage of looser EU protections of the predators. “We’re not going to let the wolf develop and go into [areas] where it competes with our activities,” Macron said during a trip to Aveyron on Thursday, referring to wolf attacks on farmers’ livestock. “And so that means that we must, as we say modestly, cull more of them.” He said that people “who invent rules and who don’t live with their animals in places where there are bears or wolves should go and spend two nights there.” Reports of wolf attacks on livestock in France have risen over the past decade and a half, with more than 10,000 reported annual deaths in recent years. European lawmakers in May greenlit a proposal amending the European Union Habitats Directive, moving the wolf from the list of “strictly protected” to “protected” species. That makes it easier for farmers in the EU to shoot wolves that threaten their herds. The directive will enter into force on July 14, giving countries until January 2027 to implement the change in national law. The highly-political push was led by the conservative European People’s Party as part of a campaign to endear themselves to farmers ahead of last year’s European elections. It became a personal project of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, whose pet pony Dolly was killed by a wolf in 2022. Green groups say relaxing protection rules is the wrong response. Macron “is engaging in a rare level of populism by asserting completely false things,” Jean-David Abel, head of the biodiversity network at France Nature Environnement, told Franceinfo on Friday.

Bug food for pets was never Plan A — it’s the last resort for insect producers to stay afloat. They blame EU bureaucracy. “I wake up every morning for the fish, not to feed the pets,” said Sébastien Crépieux, CEO of Invers, a French insect producer based in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes that grows mealworms in cooperation with local farmers. He explains that most insect producers started with the idea of replacing protein in fishmeal used to feed farmed fish with a more sustainable source — such as insects. Fishmeal is usually made from fish processing waste and forage fish like anchovies or sardines, and contributes to overfishing and biodiversity loss. In 2017, the European Commission approved the use of insect protein in aquaculture feed to address that issue. In 2022, it also allowed insects to be used in feed for pigs and poultry. For many in the field, that was a big step forward. “We all developed based on this concept,” said Crépieux. “But unfortunately, the Commission never banned fishmeal, so we’re still competing with a resource taken freely from the ocean at a very low price. Fishmeal imports into Europe must be controlled — we’re really killing the ocean,” he added. According to the 2024 United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization report, 10 percent of fish populations were fished at unsustainable levels in the mid-1970s. The number has almost quadrupled in 2021 to 37.7 percent of stocks. The ambitious EU monitoring rules on fisheries, which came into force last January, introduced electronic tracking systems for vessels and minimum sanctions for violations of the common fisheries policy — but failed to include limits on how much forage fish can be diverted to fishmeal. That’s where insect-based pet food comes in. “If we had to compete by selling our production as fish feed, we would already be dead,” said Crépieux. That is why he, like some other producers, shifted his focus to pet food. FEEDING PETS WITH BUGS Insect-based pet food — marketed as hypoallergenic and more sustainable — remains a niche product embraced mostly by true enthusiasts. Traditional pet food, made from meat or vegetable byproducts or grains, still dominates more than 99.5 percent of the market. According to Crépieux, it’s unlikely this type of pet food will ever become mainstream unless major brands like Purina or Acana adopt it. Insect-based pet food is marketed as hypoallergenic and more sustainable. | Sam Yeh/AFP via Getty Images Still, his company has managed to attract customers who care about the environment and good nutrition for their pets, he claimed. “The palatability is high. I think animals, unlike us, know what’s good for their health — they really eat it,” he said, adding that his cats are happy with this alternative protein. However, green NGOs like Eurogroup for Animals and Compassion in World Farming have questioned its true environmental benefits. “Farming insects has a higher sustainability impact than most traditional pet food ingredients … most insects are not sourced from Europe,” said Francis Maugère of Eurogroup for Animals. “If you want to rear them here, you can — but you must keep them at high temperature and humidity, which comes with financial and energy costs,” he added. The group also argues that there’s insufficient scientific evidence to support the hypoallergenic claims. “The sustainability of insect-based pet food is highly questionable — from insect welfare standards, to the need for diets based solely on byproducts rather than cereals and soy, to its high carbon footprint due to heating requirements,” said Phil Brooke, research and education manager at Compassion in World Farming. FEDIAF, which represents the European pet food industry, called insect-based pet food “one of several promising innovations” in the drive to diversify sustainable protein sources. Cecilia Lalander, a professor at the Swedish University of Uppsala specializing in insect use in waste management, believes using insects for pet food is “not the best use of resources.” “If we’re replacing pet food made from animal byproducts — like slaughter waste, which is already a good use of waste — then it’s really not sustainable,” she said. THE UNSUSTAINABLE LOOP Lack of fishmeal regulation isn’t the only source of frustration for insect producers. The EU classifies insects as farmed animals and prohibits using kitchen waste to feed them. As a result, insects are often raised on the same food processing byproducts — like wheat bran or brewery grains — that are already suitable for feeding pigs and cattle, making insects an unnecessary extra step in the food chain. Lalander argues this is inefficient and unsustainable. “The reason the insect industry can’t be as sustainable as it could be is entirely due to regulations,” she said. Following the mad cow disease (BSE) outbreak in the 1990s, the EU implemented strict rules to prevent a recurrence. It banned the use of processed meat in livestock feed, and ruled that farmed animals — including insects — may not be fed catering waste, as it could contain traces of meat. However, Lalander points out that insects cannot develop or transmit prions, the infectious proteins responsible for BSE, and that health risks are minimal. “The system the EU opposed was the most closed loop imaginable — giving feed originating from the same species, even if they were dead or sick,” she said. “What we propose is using post-consumer food waste to feed insects, which are then used to feed animals.” The European Commission, for its part, disagrees with the view that feeding insects with catering waste is risk-free. “The risks are not limited to BSE and prions only … but related to several transmissible animal diseases,” a Commission official said in response to a POLITICO inquiry. Catering waste may transmit several animal diseases such as African or classical swine fever, foot and mouth disease or avian influenza, the official said, while catering waste has been identified as a possible or likely source of infection in several outbreaks of these diseases in the EU. “Due to the nature of the insects which are living in their feed and are contaminated with their feeding substrate, only feeding substrate already declared safe for farmed animals has been authorized,” added the Commission official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Several scientific studies have found, however, that these risks can be avoided if food waste is treated properly before feeding it to insects. Such treatment can include fermentation, heat treatment, or drying to remove harmful pathogens that can be found in unprocessed food waste. Lalander argues that regulatory barriers aren’t the only challenge circular business models like the insect one are facing. Long-standing market expectations, shaped by cheap, linear production systems that overlook environmental costs, also pose a significant obstacle. “In a circular business model you pay for every step of the production. But if you look at the world market predominantly it’s a linear economy which means you take product and then you have a waste and that’s it,” Lalander said. She points out that expecting insect feed to be as cheap as fishmeal and soy is unrealistic, noting that “the cost for using soy and fish meal comes in the environmental impact.” Crépieux ended his conversation with POLITICO on a grim note. “Everything sustainable always loses. It’s always easier to take from nature, which is free,” Crépieux said.

European lawmakers on Thursday backed downgrading the wolf’s conservation status, delivering a political trophy to the Commission president and a loaded rifle to Europe’s farmers. The proposal amends the European Union Habitats Directive, moving the wolf from the list of “strictly protected” to “protected” species, making it easier for farmers in the EU to shoot wolves that threaten their herds. It’s a win for European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, answering a long-standing demand of conservative lawmakers and fulfilling a campaign promise made during the EU elections last year by her center-right European People’s Party (EPP). Von der Leyen’s own pony, Dolly, was also famously killed by a wolf back in 2022. It “horribly distressed” her “whole family,” she said in a statement after the attack. The draft rules — which passed with 371 votes in favor, 162 votes against and 37 abstentions — now only need formal approval by the Council of the EU to enter into force. They would lower the threshold for national authorities to grant derogations to kill animals deemed to pose a threat. It’s “good news for rural areas and livestock farmers,” said EPP lawmaker and group spokesperson for the environment Peter Liese in a post on X. ‘SAD DAY FOR BIODIVERSITY’ While hunters and farmers celebrated, environmental groups described a dark day for biodiversity with far-reaching impacts. Wolf populations are recovering thanks to their strict protection status, rankling farmers who want to protect their livestock. Secretary general of the European Landowners’ Organization, Jurgen Tack, described Thursday’s vote as “clear recognition that conservation policy must evolve alongside ecological realities.” But the species is still in an unfavorable conservation status in six out of the seven EU biogeographical regions where it is present, according to the latest assessment, covering the period 2013-2018. Conservationists consider the wolf a “keystone species” because of its role as a predator in the food chain and how can alter the behavior of its prey to allow other parts of the ecosystem to thrive.  “Wolves are vital to healthy ecosystems, but today’s vote treats them as a political problem, not an ecological asset,” said Ilaria Di Silvestre from the International Fund for Animal Welfare. Amendments submitted by the Greens and the Left called on the Parliament to reject the bill, arguing it sets a “dangerous precedent for decision making on conservation issues.” As expected, they didn’t muster the necessary support. CAUGHT IN THE CROSSHAIRS For now, the wolf is the only strictly protected species in legislators’ crosshairs, but that could change. Europe’s brown bear is another strictly protected species whose status is coming under increasing scrutiny, in particular from the Slovakian government. Some governments, including Austria, Finland, Sweden, Slovakia and Romania, have suggested downgrading other protected species such as bears, lynxes, seals and cormorants. In a press conference Wednesday, Liese said that while “we need to look at other species” that should face the same treatment as the wolf, like the cormorant, “that is for later, after a careful analysis.” The directive will enter into force 20 days after being published in the EU Official Journal. EU countries will then have 18 months to comply.