What the EU’s socialist and environmentalist drift is leading to: whole economic sectors in danger of collapse, sharp decline in living standards, digital lag

Farmers’ protests sweep across Europe: A united front against Brussels’ market-defying policies

For the first time in a decade, protesters from various countries have united against certain Brussels policies that defy market rules. Currently, they are rallying against the EU’s leftist, anti-market ecological policies, known collectively as the Green Deal. However, this farmers’ revolt is merely the tip of the iceberg. Statistics reveal that the EU’s leftist drift has deepened its economic gap with the USA and lost ground in the race for technological innovation.

“Fury of the farmers gains ground against the Green Deal throughout the EU,” headlined the French daily Le Monde on Monday. Across Europe, farmers are expressing their anger over the decisions of the European Commission and the consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, reported La Tribune. Reuters notes that European farmers are protesting against taxes, environmental rules, and price pressures.

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Especially after the 2008-2010 financial crisis, under the influence of increasingly vocal socialists and greens in the EU, the European Commission has attempted to impose new social and environmental standards on markets that are proving unsustainable.

Another area where Europe is losing ground is the automotive industry. The utopian belief that the EU could soon fully replace fossil fuel vehicles with electric ones is clashing with the harsh realities of the market. Sales of Europe-manufactured electric cars are declining. Chinese-made electric vehicles are gaining momentum, and Tesla, an American product, remains the best-selling electric car in the EU. Moreover, China, not Europe, controls the essential materials for producing the chips needed for electric cars.

But what have the policies known as the Green Deal and From Farm to Fork, launched by the European Commission under President Ursula von der Leyen, done so grievously? They have denied market rules, rules that cannot be changed because they are derived from human behavior. History shows us that no utopia or social engineering, however generous it may seem at first glance, can alter human nature.

The GAEC 7 and GAEC 8 regulations for farmers require them to leave a minimum of 4% of their land uncultivated and to perform an uneconomical crop rotation. The same policies lead to the rapid increase in the cost of diesel and fertilizers, overtaxed on the grounds that they come from polluting fossil fuels. These decisions cause major damage to farmers, driving some to bankruptcy. Some countries, like the Netherlands, have taken the ideology further: attempting to restrict the number of cattle farmers can raise on the grounds of pollution.

To these taxes and new regulations is added an unprecedented level of overregulation created by Brussels bureaucracy, always eager to justify its existence. Dozens of rules, some incomprehensible, hinder the production and trade of agri-food products in a market whose success in the 70s and 80s was based precisely on fundamental freedoms of movement: of goods, capital, and people.

All these taxes, standards, and rules also create the inflation that in recent years has massively eroded Europeans’ purchasing power and facilitated the rise of extremes – both left and right. Think about energy, how much bills have increased in the last decade. The explanation lies partly in the market – various crises, such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but also in the over taxation of fossil fuels and the subsidizing of green energy. All these are costs for the end customer.

To rules that seek to defy the market are added overregulation and over taxation in key areas such as technology, making the EU devoid of any digital champions. The USA, China, and Japan innovate; Europe regulates – this has been the story of global digital competition for the last two decades. Take Artificial Intelligence: the EU has no notable initiatives in the field but has birthed the first strategy for regulation.

The work ethic in the EU also suffers, under constant attack from unions and new generations pushing for reduced working hours and remote work, without the pressure of the office. Meanwhile, Asia and the USA are experiencing significant productivity increases.

The result of these leftist, anti-market, and anti-capital policies is evident in statistics. Europeans face a new economic reality: they are becoming poorer. The eurozone economy has grown by about 6% in the last 15 years, measured in dollars, compared to 82% for the USA, according to data from the International Monetary Fund cited by The Wall Street Journal. This has made the average EU country poorer per capita than every US state except Idaho and Mississippi, according to a report by the Brussels-based independent think tank, the European Centre for International Political Economy.

If the current trend continues, by 2035, the gap between per capita economic output in the USA and the EU will be as large as that between Japan and Ecuador today, the report states.

Another relevant statistic: the European Union currently accounts for about 18% of global consumer spending, compared to 28% for America. Fifteen years ago, the EU and the USA each represented approximately 25% of this total.

Faced with this crisis, the entire architecture of the Green Deal and the EU’s capacity to achieve an ecological transition are being questioned. European People’s Party members want to reverse the ecological reforms they themselves supported.

Let’s be clear: it is normal to fight for reduced pollution, to demand more efficient public transport, to impose bearable standards in industry. But it is wrong and counterproductive to be blinded by ideology and to believe we can change market rules in its name. Researcher Sorin Dinu explained this perfectly in this analysis published by Economedia. We Romanians know this all too well after 45 years of communism.

This is what happens, however, when the screams of media star Greta Thunberg are listened to more in Brussels, Paris, and Berlin than the reasonable arguments of entrepreneurs and employees. Now the pendulum effect is manifesting: the excess of socialism is met with anti-EU rhetoric by extremist parties.

Beware! Criticizing European socialism does not mean criticizing the entire construction, but the excesses and drift of this ideology. This is not the solution because the EU itself is a good political construction, and destroying the Union would bring war back to the continent. What mainstream parties need to do is correct the ideological drift and return to economic decency.