It’s been a rough month or so for Villainess Von der Leyen, Empress of ALL Europe.
Okay – that was a bit of an exaggeration, as Ursula Von der Leyen, European Commission President, only looks like a Bond villainess and acts like an empress.
Between surviving one no-confidence vote, probably facing another, and watching her orange arch nemesis upset her stringently regulated globalist utopian world order, it has to have been a trying period for the penultimate Brussels Brahmin.
And now here come those damn farmers again.
Can the peasants never remember their place in the order?
Several hundred farmers are protesting in Brussels today over fears of EU budget cuts to agriculture. No tractors today. pic.twitter.com/V7n8vf4pRD
— Ferdinand Knapp (@ferdinandknapp) July 16, 2025
They left the tractors and manure at home for now. This protest was openly acknowledged as a dry run practice.
But what has farmers and agricultural organizations across Europe so incensed at the moment are the proposed budget cuts and plans that were tactically ‘leaked’ this week.
For a farming sector that struggles under probably the most onerous regulations of everything from what they grow to how it’s grown to where it’s sold, the one consolation EU farmers have is that every other farmer in the collective labors under the exact same rules.
And always such rules from a hostile elite.
…These are all just one slice of the EU’s broader attack on farmers. Its 2020 Farm to Fork scheme ordered member states to, by 2030, set aside a tenth of farmland for nature, convert at least one-quarter of holdings to organic produce, cut fertiliser use by 20% and to halve chemical pesticide use—though the latter was eventually scrapped.
In the budget, agriculture has been a separate entity under the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), and compensated/subsidised for the basically state-run agricultural program by the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund and the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development.
Those tried to maintain a balance between the small-scale, rural farmers of, say, Northern Italy or France and the larger industrial scale some of the Eastern European members practice. Compensation in the form of subsidies and agriculture investment payments is divvied up by production, etc. Theoretically, the cost of doing business under EU regulations is part of that. Needless to say, it’s very complicated, but also an ingrained system nearly 70 years old. If the EU expects farmers to comply and make a living feeding Europeans under these tremendously byzantine rules, the EU must also help sustain the agriculture it’s inhibiting.
One hand washes the other.
What has happened with this budget is two-fold. That CAP has been reduced by 20%, which alarmed the sector enough already. But it’s the second part of the proposal that has farmers flipping out. The formerly independent CAP is going to be folded into the larger budget (although still supposedly independent), and the two funds merged into a single fund, the bulk of which would be managed at the national level instead of from Brussels.
As many EU governments are already in fiscal straits, farmers naturally see the danger in having their subsistence funds now dependent on their parliaments.
…The protest targeted what farmers see as damaging reforms to EU agricultural policy. According to the General Farmers’ Syndicate (ABS), the Commission’s proposal for the 2028–2034 budget framework includes a 20 per cent cut to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and a plan to merge the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund and the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development into a single fund managed at the national level.
“In addition, it is proposed to merge the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund and the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development into a single central fund, which would be managed at the national level,” stated ABS, which joined the protest along with its youth wing, Jong ABS. The organisations called the proposals “hypocrisy, not sincerity.”
Alongside Belgian groups such as the Farmers’ Union, ABS and the Walloon Agriculture Federation (FWA), farmer organisations from Germany, Spain, France and Portugal also took part in the demonstration. While police have not released an official count, news agency Belga estimated several hundred participants.
The farmers argue that the CAP must remain the foundation for strategic food production across the EU and warn that national-level management risks ignoring regional differences. “After all, small-scale, family-run Flemish urban agriculture has different needs than Eastern European mega-farms,” ABS said. The group also criticised “administrative obstacles” and “a relentless drive for control,” arguing that substantial revisions are still needed.
Farmers across Europe were vocal, and the organizing was already in progress, even as Von der Leyen made an anemic attempt to lie her way out of it, before dumping the controversy in the lap of a subordinate.
…Von der Leyen, presenting her budget proposal, denied that farmers would lose out and highlighted the funding available to rural communities under other spending programs.
“Agriculture will be strengthened. What we have safeguarded are the direct payments to farmers,” she told a news conference. “That is one part that is clearly safeguarded and secured.”
She left Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen to defend the cuts that he himself spent months fighting against behind closed doors.
No one was buying what they were selling.
…Welcome to Vonderland
Farmers aren’t convinced.
While Hansen tried to calm tempers inside the Parliament, hundreds of farmers rallied outside the EU institutions in Brussels, waving flags and chanting slogans like “Welcome to Vonderland” — a jab at von der Leyen for what they see as the betrayal of Europe’s farm sector.
“They’re dismantling 70 years of European history,” fumed Massimiliano Giansanti, the head of Copa, the powerful EU farming lobby, referring to the CAP’s post–World War II origins.
For many of Europe’s farmers, the CAP isn’t just a subsidy system, it’s a birthright.
“They want to have a declaration of war to the farmers. OK, we are ready,” Giansanti added.
Italian farmers were out in their streets, too, demanding Von der Leyen’s resignation.
Italian farmers demanding the immediate resignation of EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen have taken to the streets in Rome and Brussels. Their protests center on Brussels’ failed agricultural policy.
Italy’s largest farmers’ association and lobbying group, Coldiretti, organized the actions, saying that the European Commission’s decisions have caused ten times more damage to the EU’s agriculture than the U.S. tariff threats. The protesters say leadership in Brussels is building “an empire of its own” while ignoring member states and their citizens, reports Hungairan news outlet Origo.
The farmers also say that while Accusing von der Leyen of creating her own “Vonderland,” the farmers held pictures of von der Leyen, alongside banners declaring her responsible for the collapse of European agriculture and food production, while also disregarding the democratic rights of the member states, their governments and their citizens.
And Orban wasted no time in throwing fuel on the fire, implying the missing CAP money was going to Ukraine.
⚠️🌾 A shocking new EU budget leak reveals a dangerous gamble: Ukraine would get a massive funding boost, while European farmers lose out. This plan risks sidelining rural Europe and threatening families across the continent. Brussels must not abandon Europe’s farmers to bankroll… pic.twitter.com/J74f27q1ND
— Orbán Viktor (@PM_ViktorOrban) July 16, 2025
It could be a noisy, messy couple of years coming up.
…Farmers and their representatives are preparing for long and difficult negotiations to advocate for their interests.
On Wednesday, farmers from across Europe had already gathered in Brussels for a first round of practice, but had still left their tractors at home. “This proposal is a provocation,” said FNSEA boss Arnaud Rousseau during the demonstration. “No one has any interest in challenging European farmers. If this message has not been heard, we will be back.”
Brussels and other European capitals were roiled last year by farmers protesting against cheap imports, low margins and the burden of environmental rules.
Negotiations on the MFF proposal between the 27 Member States and the European Parliament are expected to last until the end of 2027. The transformation of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) will be at the heart of the difficult negotiations ahead.
‘No farmers, no food, no future’, some of the signs read.
For a trading bloc whose agricultural imports increase every year, it might behoove the Brahmins to leave those who work the soil alone and dabble elsewhere. South America is a long way off for depending on your foodstuffs, when you could have kept them growing in your own backyard.
