{"id":470021,"date":"2026-11-03T16:29:19","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T15:29:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/11\/03\/agricoltori-in-piazza-a-bruxelles-per-difendere-la-condizionalita-sociale\/"},"modified":"2026-11-03T18:32:32","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T17:32:32","slug":"farmers-take-to-the-streets-in-brussels-to-defend-social-conditionality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/11\/03\/farmers-take-to-the-streets-in-brussels-to-defend-social-conditionality\/","title":{"rendered":"Farmers take to the streets in Brussels to defend social conditionality"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels \u2013 \u201cWe cannot allow companies that engage in illegal recruitment practices, exploitation, and undeclared work to receive the Common Agricultural Policy subsidies.\u201d This was stated today (3 November) by the head of Coldiretti\u2019s Labour Division, Romano Magrini<\/strong>, at a protest in Place Jean Rey, in the heart of the EU quarter in Brussels. Today, the European Federation of Food, Agriculture and Tourism Trade Unions (EFFAT) organised a protest to \u201ccall for a fairer agricultural sector and defend social conditionality.\u201d Coldiretti was there \u201cto show its support for EFFAT and to champion social conditionality against its exclusion from the next CAP programming period,<\/strong>\u201d explained Magrini.<\/p>\n

Introduced as part of the 2021 CAP reform, social conditionality is a principle that makes public funds granted to employers conditional upon their compliance with workers\u2019 rights. According to a report by EFFAT, \u201calthough it has only been applied in most Member States since 2025, it is now under serious threat in the context of the CAP negotiations for the post-2027 period.\u201d<\/p>\n

The spokesperson emphasised that the clause \u201cis designed to protect agricultural workers and honest farming businesses,<\/strong>\u201d noting that Coldiretti is in fact \u201cthe only Italian agricultural organisation to support it.\u201d The Committee of Professional Agricultural Organisations of the EU (COPA)<\/strong>, led by its president Massimiliano Giansanti<\/strong>, has spoken out against\u00a0its inclusion in the future CAP<\/strong>, leading to the exclusion of the mechanism from the provisional negotiating position approved by the Council of the European Union in October 2026.<\/p>\n

Like Magrini, the deputy representative of Coldiretti Giovani Impresa in Piedmont, Alessandro Caruso<\/strong>, stated that the abolition is\u00a0not \u201ca simplification in terms of what is involved in entering the world of work,\u201d but rather \u201cunfounded words and justifications.\u201d \u201cPublic money cannot be used to contribute to the erosion of workers\u2019 rights,<\/strong>\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The Greens\u2019 MEP, Cristina Guarda<\/strong>, has expressed her \u201cfull support for workers and trade unions who are calling for one simple thing: those who receive European public funds must respect the rights of those working in the fields.\u201d She also noted that \u201cthere cannot be any agriculture supported by Europe that tolerates exploitation,\u201d after \u201cthe Agrifish Council has come out against<\/a> this principle from its position on the post-2027 CAP.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guarda made it clear that social conditionality represented \u201can important achievement,\u201d in that \u201cfor the first time, it has effectively linked access to CAP subsidies to compliance with labour, health, and safety standards.<\/strong>\u201d Conversely, he concluded, there is now a risk of \u201cscrapping it at a time when the agricultural sector continues to grapple with irregular employment, illegal recruitment practices, unlawful labour brokering, and unacceptable working conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAccording to EFFAT estimates, at least 10 million people are employed in agriculture across the EU, but 32 per cent of agricultural work is undeclared or under-declared,\u201d stated Camilla Laureti<\/strong>, MEP for the PD and the party\u2019s spokesperson on agricultural policy, who took part in the event organised by EFFAT in Brussels. \u201cEvery year, around 150,000 accidents are recorded, of which approximately 500 are fatal, because irregular employment certainly does not promote health and safety. This is why we must always place the rights and safety of those working in the fields at the heart of the Common Agricultural Policy<\/strong>. Social conditionality must be an indispensable pillar of the CAP 2028\u20132034 as well: European funding must go only to businesses that respect the rights of workers, not to those who base their business model on exploitation and illegal labour recruitment schemes,\u201d which are \u201ca scourge that affects migrant workers in particular, who are often exposed to conditions of extreme coercion, including from the agromafias.\u201d According to Laureti, \u201cit is also a matter of justice and competitiveness: those who exploit labour engage in unfair competition against farms that abide by the rules and invest in quality, thereby damaging the entire sector.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a principle of the Common Agricultural Policy which makes the disbursement of European funds conditional upon respect for workers\u2019 rights. A delegation from Coldiretti has come to Brussels to protest against its removal from the forthcoming post-2027 regulation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7908,"featured_media":469990,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25709],"tags":[26189,26743,36497,28529,28289,25755,34774,27021],"class_list":["post-470021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agrifood-en","tag-coldiretti-in-2","tag-policy-agricultural-community-en","tag-condizionalita-sociale","tag-copa-en","tag-cristina-guarda-en","tag-news-parliament-en","tag-i-verdi","tag-maximilian-giansanti-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7908"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470021"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":470044,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470021\/revisions\/470044"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}