Recovery from the coronavirus is now the new excuse of European gastronationalists. As the "Politiko" portal writes, governments across Europe are using the pandemic to push a protectionist agenda that practically equates consumption of local products with patriotism, which, according to some observers, threatens the EU's single market.
"I call for food patriotism, for agricultural patriotism," French Minister of Agriculture Didier Guillem said on the radio last Sunday, encouraging citizens to strengthen the competitiveness of French farmers by buying French strawberries and tomatoes, not Spanish, even though they are cheaper.
However, as "Politico" writes, there are countries that have gone even further than France.
Namely, the Polish government called out and shamed 15 domestic processors for importing milk from other EU countries, instead of buying it from Polish farmers.
"The economic patriotism of these companies is cause for concern," the government said in an online statement, although it later removed the list of dairies that used foreign milk in the first quarter of 2020.
This move angered the Polish dairy association, which sent a letter to the Minister of Agriculture, Kristof Ardanowski, in which, according to "Politika", they stated that companies import less than one percent of foreign milk and that this does not affect the prices of dairy products.
"A country that is proud of its high-quality food exports should refrain from any kind of protectionist initiatives, for the sake of its own security," the association's letter states, noting that the Polish dairy sector exports about 30 percent of its production.
In Austria, Agriculture Minister Elisabeth Kustinger announced last Tuesday that the government is working on "regional bonuses" for food.
Local food will have certain advantages in order to strengthen the sector affected by the crisis caused by the coronavirus, Austrian media reported. However, Vienna pointed out that they will have to make sure that it is in accordance with the standards of international and EU trade.
Since early March, the French government has been in talks with the country's supermarkets to buy local fresh food. As a result, the largest French retail chains have almost completely switched to local suppliers.
The president of the National Farmers' Union of England and Wales, Minet Betters, said earlier this month that she would write to the House of Commons to commit to sourcing from local suppliers whenever possible.
Similar calls could be heard in Portugal, Greece and Bulgaria, the Brussels portal points out.
Meanwhile, the market for many agricultural products has been shaken by the mass closure of restaurants and the introduction of restrictive measures, resulting in frequent calls for Europeans to eat patriotically.
The Belgians were told to eat more fried potatoes, the French to eat more cheese, and the British to drink more tea (as long as it contained milk) to cope with a combination of market glut and falling demand.
However, this kind of gastropatriotism has caused concern among some who point to the consequences for fair competition in the EU single market.
German Agriculture Minister Julia Klukner warned her European colleagues during a video conference on Wednesday of the dangers of "nationalist consumerism", stressing that EU countries should refrain from implementing protectionist policies to help the economy recover.
"Cross-border supply chains and the freedom of movement of goods are key to guaranteeing the safe supply of citizens. This is precisely why I am against "nationalist consumerism". It is only a seeming power that will fade quickly. We must not jeopardize the achievements of the single market," she stated in the statement.
The allocation of state subsidies for farmers affected by the crisis is another reason for controversy in Brussels, Politiko writes.
Eight EU countries took advantage of the temporary loosening of competition regulations within the EU and promised their farmers state aid of a total of 1,2 billion euros, said European Minister of Agriculture Janus Vojčehovski. However, he later said himself that "it is necessary to monitor the situation because there is a risk that it is not good for fair competition, for the common market".
By loosening regulations, Brussels enabled Finland to help its farmers with 30 million euros, and Italy created a program of credit guarantees of 100 million euros for its agricultural sector.
However, Politiko points out that one of the biggest aid packages approved by the Commission is the one in the Netherlands, where the state helped flower, potato and vegetable producers with 650 million euros.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki sent a letter to Wojciechowski in which he claims that state aid, although "necessary", creates "new risks of drastic deepening of differences in development and conditions of agricultural competition in the EU common market".
The spokesperson of the European Commission said that by limiting state agricultural aid to 100 euros per farm, "the aim is to avoid that member states excessively help their companies and thus create unfair conditions for other participants of the single market".
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