Farmers in Europe have been on strike for the second month. They block roads in the Netherlands, Germany, France, Poland, Greece, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Italy. On February 6, the Spaniards joined the protests. Following the news, the dean of the Faculty of Journalism of BSU, the political scientist, Aleksey Belyaev, talked about the reasons for these protests. Here is what he, in particular, said on the air of Radio Alfa's talk show “Budni”, on February 6:
“Why do they do this? Because Europe, first, started a sanctions war with Russia and thereby, by closing the curtain and cutting off their own trade with Russia, they deprived their farmers of huge earnings. It is no secret that before the sanctions period, Russia was a huge market for European agricultural products.”
A ban on the EU agricultural products sale in the Russian Federation was introduced ten years ago. Its initiator was Russia. In 2014, in response to sanctions for the annexation of Crimea, Vladimir Putin set a food embargo, and it has been extended every year.
Two years after its introduction, economists from the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration under the President of the Russian Federation came to the conclusion that the embargo on food supplies from Western countries did not cause significant damage to these states.
“There are isolated cases when a reduction in imports to Russia led to a real drop in the volumes and value of exports from sanctioned countries. These cases are insignificant in terms of the scale of economic damage caused. Thus, the Russian embargo on the supply of basic types of food did not cause significant damage to suppliers from these countries,” Academy experts stated.
Moreover, the protesters do not demand the lifting of anti-Russian sanctions.
This fact indicates that the current farm strikes are not related to the ban on the sale of agricultural products to Russia.
Politico published an interactive map of Europe, which reflects the complaints of farmers from different countries. These include high prices, cheap imports, taxation, EU green policies, diesel subsidies and much more. The demand to lift the food embargo is not on this list.
