But European Union officials have privately conceded that sensitivities in the farming sectors across the 27-member bloc will make it almost impossible to grant Australian farm commodities a fast track to tariff-free and quota-free access to the market of 450 million consumers,with an estimated $26 trillion gross domestic product.
The bloc’s groundbreaking European Green Deal is being resisted by large segments of society which oppose the slew of new costly and radical environmental laws and rules.
Irish farmers are rebelling against a proposal revealed this week to cull tens of thousands of cattle a year to help Ireland meet its climate change targets.
The Irish government wants to reduce emissions from farming by a quarter by 2030 with one option being considered to reduce the national dairy herd by 10 per cent – 65,000 cows a year for three years – at a cost of €200 million ($320.5 million) annually.
In the Netherlands,months of road blocks and demonstrations by farmers frustrated with onerous EU green policies were capped by the stunning victory in provincial elections in March of a new conservative party representing farmers,the Farmer-Citizen Movement.
Convoys of tractors have also brought traffic in Brussels to a standstill recently,as thousands of Belgian farmers protested the Flemish regional government’s plans to limit nitrogen emissions from agriculture,which they say threaten to put many of them out of business.