Danish farmer about #Ukraine's membership of the #EU :
"I had not imagined that there would be war in Europe again. But if EU membership for Ukraine can ensure that it doesn't happen again, I would be more than happy to pay 25 per cent of my agricultural subsidies from the EU to them," says Leif Hougaard.
"This would mean a lower income and less to fall back on. But that's how it is and should be. Because no one is dying here."
@Ruth_Mottram Since I started working for a Danish company, I've really come to love this nation. They all possess something I've always wanted to be at the core of my personality—an objective view, regardless of whether it’s good or bad for me or my wallet.
While this is a very noble thing to say by one Danish farmer, it would be naive to think that all EU farmers would share this attitude, especially as we faced similar conflicts of interests in 2000’s when many new Central and Eastern European joined EU and CAP, competing with Western European farmers.
Of course, this is going to create frictions, especially in the same CEE countries that don’t yet feel that confident as their businesses had been competing on the common market for the last ~20 years, half of which involved huge investments to comply with EU rules.
And of course, it’s going to be in long term good for everyone in the EU, but it requires a very careful and balanced policy management in order to deescalate such conflicts among all participants.
@kravietz@Ruth_Mottram yes. Especially since countries like Denmark and many states in Germany have agricultural business models (industrial pig farming...) that would profit from Ukraine in the EU and lower prices for fattening feed.
EU farming is complex, which creates plenty of traps to fall for, as demonstrated by this years Poland grain embargo. E.g. if German push for cheap feed from Ukraine using their lobbying weight this will once again antagonise Polish farmers who will rightly feel screwed by what they perceive as dumping practice. That’s why I highlight it has to be done very carefully.
Food security is IMO one of main reasons for the established long term funding of Ukraine by Germany.
This is also one thing to keep in mind. German political establishment is less concerned about T-72s on the Elbe. But quite a lot about food security from the 2040s onwards...
As you remember, “energy security” was one of the main reasons quoted by Germany for construction of NS2, mostly against the energy security of remaining Member States 😉
@t_mkdf@kravietz@Ruth_Mottram sounds like what is needed is leadership, spelling out why hardship maybe required perhaps after the rich are taxed more.
Though actually leadership in western democracies has been lacking for well past my 50 year lifetime.
Leadership assumes there’s some defined set of facts and values according to which someone is going to lead. In the world of postmodernism that dominated political philosophy of Western 20-21st century, the very concept of “fact” is questioned, not to mention “values”. As result, the facts and values of course are still there but are not discussed publicly, and leadership of course still happens, just not on the surface.
@Ruth_Mottram@kravietz@t_mkdf as far as values being so varied, I also disagree.
Violent aggression bad.
Murder bad.
Sacrifice to prevent the above good.
I can only agree with these, but then you have other people who come up and say “it’s actually OK to murder people if they come from another tribe” or “another religion” or “if they’re rich” or “if they had sex before marriage” or “engage with the same sex”.
And then you have postmodernists saying it’s not OK to tell these people “sorry, your values are incompatible with ours”, and telling that in such an aggressive way that makes any centre politician just avoid talking about this topic at all.
And this is precisely what makes centre parties gradually move towards… well, basically nihilism, while creating a political opportunity for populists like Jobbik, AfD, BNP etc.
I’m intentionally trying to avoid giving any specific examples as it would only distract us from the essence of the problem towards another tribal war ;)
@Ruth_Mottram@kravietz@t_mkdf I believe you are getting pretty far afield. Leadership starts by focusing people on A task and rallying them to it, not engaging in a broad ranging philosophical debate, that in a word is academic which is the opposite of leadership.
It's all in the view of regional, national and European interests in a web of dependencies.
So Ukraine might get the support from Germany and the EU that it needs. Polish security concerns will be taken more seriously. But Polish farmers might be thrown under the bus.
That “web of dependencies” sounds very much like an echo of Wandel durch Handel philosophy which failed us miserably in case of Russia 😉
Dependencies are good as long as they are formed between peers who share similar values. This is why strategic Russian gas or Chinese resources imports were harmful for EU, as they created a critical dependence on a business partner with much more predatory system of values than yours, so it’s not them who are undergoing Wandel as result of the exchange.
If a powerful EU player pushes to abandon or ease EU rules applying to existing producers in order to secure short-term profits for one of their own sectors, that undermines the whole point of EU existence as an economic cooperation framework 🤷
@t_mkdf@Ruth_Mottram@kravietz what failed us with Russia and with the whole neo liberalism is missing the trueism that sociopathy Increases with networth. So economic engagement was never the fuel for liberal democracy, it’s the other way around.
In any case, IMO EU subsidies shouldn't be granted to those exploiting the environment and fueling the #climatecrisis , no matter the industry and member state.
A long way to go but nonetheless a must before 2029.
@proscience well I agree with that too.. Danish farming also bears a heavy responsibility for environmental degradation in Denmark (and via soy imports to feed the incredible number of pigs we export), so there in general needs to be a rethink around CAP, but we also need to work out how to feed the population and everyone likes cheap food.
But given how prevalent obesity and its consequences are for various health systems in EU MSs (Nordic countries incl DK usually faring much better than DE etc), it's too cheap. It should cover the /actual/ costs of co-causing the climate crisis, co-causing drought, co-destroying the environment (biodiversity etc).
If that were the case, people would eat less, be healthier, wouldn't see health costs rising.
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