Police officers watching over dozens of tractors taking part in a demonstration near Argenteuil, north of Paris, France, on January 29th, 2024. Instead of large demonstrations calling for action on climate change it is now farmer protests that were framing the EU agendaMention environment and climate policy in Brussels these days and you’re often met with a resigned shrug or a frustrated sigh depending on who you are talking to.
In Ireland the Greens won two seats with the election of Ciarán Cuffe in Dublin and Grace O’Sullivan in the South constituency, while the party also took a raft of council seats in the simultaneous local elections. As the last votes were still being counted, a group of young party activists were celebrating over drinks in the bar of a Ballsbridge hotel down the road from the RDS count centre.
Protests by farmers in national capitals have worried the leaders of several EU countries as the elections loom and caused anxiety in the European People’s Party , the centre-right grouping that includes Fine Gael. The latest piece of environmental reform to fall victim to the rollback is the Nature Restoration Law, landmark legislation aimed at protecting nature and reversing biodiversity loss. A watered-down version of the law squeezed through a European Parliament vote in February, despite being opposed by the EPP. It had already been pared back to try to meet the concerns of some member states.