Faced with the anger of Italian farmers who demand, among other measures, better remuneration, the abolition of taxes on fuel and an increase in the price of milk and while the hundreds of tractors which converged on the capital were massed at the gates of Rome , Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni decided to let go on Friday February 9.
“The government’s proposal is to help farmers who need it by limiting the income tax exemption (…) to the most vulnerable while until now it benefited the largest farms,” said Ms. Meloni during the reception at government headquarters with his ministers of agriculture and the economy from organizations representative of the agricultural sector. This favorable regime, in place since 2017, was not extended in the last budget, to the great dismay of the profession.
“In Europe, the government has defended farmers and contested from the start the erroneous choices imposed by the European Commission,” she added, saying it was “favorable to the defense of the environment and the ecological transition, but firmly contrary to what has become an ideological transition of diktats”.
Mobilization in Turin, Sicily and Rome
Similar protest movements took place in Germany at the end of December, then in France and elsewhere in Europe. In Italy, farmers have mobilized in different regions, from Turin to Sicily, and now in the capital.
Dozens of them, mainly from Tuscany and from the Riscatto agricolo (“agricultural awakening”) movement, have been stationed since Monday on the outskirts of Rome in a field near the highway. On Friday, more than three hundred tractors, including three in the colors of the Italian flag, paraded along the Colosseum, one of the most famous monuments in the capital.
Like their European colleagues, Italian breeders and growers oppose certain EU rules and competition that they consider unfair with other countries such as Canada and Ukraine. They also demand the elimination of taxes on agricultural fuel and better remuneration.
Following their criticism of the European Green Deal, which is supposed to help the EU achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, European farmers obtained Tuesday from Brussels the abandonment of a text aimed at reducing the use pesticides. Giorgia Meloni then welcomed a “victory which is also that of our government”.
The main beneficiary of the European recovery plan after the Covid-19 pandemic, Italy recently obtained an increase in aid intended for its agriculture, going from 5 to 8 billion euros.
