Letter from Brussels - February 2026

Just before Christmas, Copa-Cogeca, the EU representative body for farm organisations and co-operatives (Irish Farmers’ Association [IFA] and ICOS are members) organised their largest gathering of farmers in over 10 years. It attracted 10,000 farmers from across Europe, and it also attracted great attention from the EU Commission.
IFA president, Francie Gorman, drove his tractor from Laois to Brussels while ICOS president, Edward Carr was among the Irish delegation who marched. These events take a lot of planning with the Belgian police and Brussels authorities, so it is only when matters are critical that a mobilisation of such numbers is triggered. Over the past 18 months, the EU Commission has done a lot of talking about improving the position of the farmer in the food chain and cutting through red tape. On the ground, there has been little sign of those words being put into action.
It prompted a second such protest in Strasbourg towards the end of January. The key issues among farmers from across Europe focus on the proposed post-2027 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which is poor in structure and short on funding. Unfair trade policies and the urgent need for simplification, better regulation and legal certainty were among the other headline issues which prompted the series of street actions.
Sitting at meetings with contemporaries here in Brussels, there is a sense of people losing patience with the EU Commission. ‘Smoke and mirrors’ is how Copa-Cogeca titled the December 18 protest because, according to farmers, it accurately represents how they feel the Commission is approaching their concerns. What the protest did achieve was the calling of an emergency meeting of farm ministers in early January to address the main bullet points raised by the farmers on the streets of Brussels. It prompted EU Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen to move the deckchairs regarding the proposed CAP budget but that’s all it is, no new money, just frontloading what is already proposed.
There is a huge focus on defence and security with air raid siren drills going on in different capital cities on a weekly basis. There is nervousness in countries bordering Russia, hence the political and financial heft being funnelled towards beefing up defence and security which is understandable. But it should not come at the expense of food security and the protection of EU food production. When I tried to explain to farmers at a recent meeting why the focus is shifting towards defence and security by way of explaining the cut in CAP funding, one farmer wryly asked, ‘and who is going to feed all these soldiers?’