German Officials Ignore Farmers’ Protests to Save Agricultural Fuel Tax Exemptions
In response, German Farmers’ unions to demonstrate nationwide Jan. 8-15.
Legal Insurrection readers may recall our overage of the farmers’ protests in the Netherlands last year. The movement was so successful that the Boer-Burger Beweging (BBB), or Farmer-Citizen Movement, became the largest party in the country’s senate, winning more seats than Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s ruling conservative VVD party.
German officials may want to take note of this development. Two weeks ago, German farmers organized a massive protest against the government’s plans to cut diesel subsidies and tax breaks for agricultural vehicles next year as part of Berlin’s 2024 austerity measures.
After a constitutional court ruling last month that cancelled 60 billion euros of earmarked debt, the federal government last week announced plans to save around 900 million euros ($983.34 million) annually in subsidies for farmers.
According to next year’s budget, a partial tax refund on agricultural diesel, along with a tax exemption for agricultural vehicles, will be abolished to meet the saving targets – a measure farmers said would threaten their livelihood and the competitiveness of Germany’s agricultural sector.
Farmers protested the planned cuts at the Brandenburg Gate, carrying placards reading “YOUR POLITICS ARE A DECLARATION OF WAR AGAINST FARMERS” and “TOO MUCH IS TOO MUCH! IT’S OVER NOW!” parking a number of tractors along Berlin’s Strasse des 17. Juni boulevard in central Berlin.
🔊 … music
Massive protests are being carried out by farmers in Germany against the government on January 8th.
The farmers in Germany are protesting due to unfair taxes and practices being carried out by the government.
Why don't we ever see this on the news?
🚨🚨🚨 pic.twitter.com/RNrYaDy35u
— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) January 3, 2024
Farming is already economically challenging, especially with Germany’s regulatory throttling of fossil fuel use. The farmers argue the new tax plans impose harsh burdens on those in the agriculture industry.
However, eco-activists in Greenpeace say everything will be alright…because food will cost so much more.
Joachim Rukweid, the president of the German Farmers’ Association, reportedly described the plan as a “declaration of war” on farmers.
Farmer Jule Bonsels told the publication removing the tax breaks could pose an additional cost of upwards of 20,000 euros per year.
Environmental group Greenpeace, however, reportedly says the rising price of food will more than make up for the lack of subsidies.
“With all understanding for the farmers – making agricultural diesel cheaper by the state is expensive, harmful to the climate and should be abolished,” Greenpeace agricultural expert Martin Hofstetter told Reuters.
The nation’s political leaders appear to be ignoring the farmers’ demands, at least at the present time.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition government has brushed aside calls to change a compromise agreement on Germany’s 2024 budget as a way to accommodate angry farmers.
“There is a political agreement… and this is now being implemented technically, the ministries are working on the wording for the respective draft laws,” deputy government spokesman Wolfgang Buechner told reporters in Berlin on Thursday when asked if there might be changes to the fiscal plan in light of harsh criticism of the farming lobby and the agriculture chief.
The spokesman comments come after almost a month of negotiations to cut next year’s spending by €17 billion ($18.9 billion).
…The adjustments to the 2024 budget had become necessary after Germany’s top court declared in mid-November that the shifting of debt-financed funds outside the budget was unconstitutional. The coalition negotiations that followed were the toughest test yet for the ruling three-party coalition. Lawmakers are expected to pass the budget next month.
In response, the farmers will organize more demonstrations against the proposed budget and the politicians who drafted it.
Farmers’ unions plan a “week of action” in cities across Germany, Jan 8-15. The DBV and LSV lobby groups will lead the campaign to denounce government policies including the taxes on agricultural vehicles and diesel. The protests are likely to include convoys of slow-moving agricultural vehicles in city centers, as well as demonstrations outside government offices.
The campaign will culminate in a major protest event in Berlin on Jan. 15. On Dec. 18 an estimated 1,500 tractors converged on the Brandenburg Gate and Strasse des 17 Juni, disrupting traffic in the area; a similar or greater number is likely on Jan. 15.
🇩🇪 ALL EYES ON GERMANY
I’ll be traveling to Berlin next week as the German Farmers have announced that they will launch a protest “larger than the country has ever seen before” on Monday, January 8.
Multiple farmers' associations, the train drivers’ union and the trucking… pic.twitter.com/xDxttAbeqq
— Eva Vlaardingerbroek (@EvaVlaar) January 3, 2024
If the Dutch model is any guide, expect big changes in German leadership in 2024.
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Comments
Germany getting a political dose of common sense would be a surprise at this point.
The everyday German people tend to be smart, innovative, and hardy. Their politicians are a pile of hacks culled from the elitist aristocracy.
“We have to destroy your lives to save them.”
Just wait until Germans see what this does to food prices.
So are you saying that what it costs to produce goods is somehow related to the price they sells at? Wow! That’s like cosmic.
Netzero Starvation is Coming.
The engineered shortage of fossil fuel fertilizer has lead to a 50% increase in Rice prices in Asia.
Poor children are starving for Green Fantasies.
I don’t understand the reasoning. If they pay more for fuel, their prices in turn go up, and it doesn’t change their business viability. It winds up coming out of the general population without government in the loop any longer.
If their competition for consumers were only in-country, then your argument would have some validity. However their product (food) can be grown in other countries and imported. This means that they are in world-wide competition and other countries’ farmers may have the advantage of direct and/or indirect subsidies from their gov’ts. Many countries tend to prioritize agriculture as hungry populations can become disruptive populations. Germany may find that relying on foreign sources for food is at least potentially as disruptive as relying on foreign sources for energy.
In competing against subsidized goods, the traditional answer is a tariff on those goods.
The government can now say that they didn’t give farmers tax breaks — thus maximizing federal revenue. They played no favorites. On the other hand, they can blame higher food prices on “greedy capitalists”.
It’s also not just a simple game of adjustment. People who can’t afford as much will buy less. They might starve or get a little malnourished and additively that can affect the return on farmer’s investments that keep them afloat.
Greenpeace is alright with the slaughter of whales, dolphins and
Sharks from the windmills
Does anyone see the possibility of a new political force arising combining those discriminated against by their own government, and those tired of being oppressed by foreign invaders? Just because we are willing to tolerate whatever the Left does here does not mean that Germans necessarily are.
Subotai Bahadur
Protesting is useless because the governments do not respect the people any more.
So what to do?
Burn the fields. All of it. A little starvation should shock the country into waking up and realizing that fucking with farmers is a bad idea.
The best farmer protests are where they bring out their politician spreaders heaping that smelly cow schiff all over the capital.
Looks to me like the average person in Germany is like the US. Politicians were telling them what they were going to do to them and everyone ignored it. Now it’s almost too late and the uncontrolled welfare state, high prices and open immigration is coming home to roost. I bet most of those guys never voted.
Its never to late to change anything.
Isnt it interesting how austerity measures ALWAYS means taking more money out of YOUR pocket and not out of the Governments pocket.
Whitney Webb:
Wall Street’s Takeover of Nature Advances with Launch of New Asset Class
https://unlimitedhangout.com/2021/10/investigative-reports/wall-streets-takeover-of-nature-advances-with-launch-of-new-asset-class/