The EU objectives
It is no secret that the European Union is aiming for a drastic reduction in CO2 emissions and a strong limitation of pollutants. Years and years of community policies have been focused on the goal of climate neutrality in 2050, in this sense the Commission recommends a net reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 90% by 2040 compared to 1990 levels, a goal that is not easy to achieve and that requires the involvement of all sectors. The first deadline for this path is however just around the corner, the reduction of emissions by 55% by 2030 leaves little room for second thoughts and is a cause for considerable concern for the activities involved.
The Social Climate Fund and the Just Transition Fund are two examples of policies that will help citizens, regions, businesses and workers already in this decade, but some directives are of concern especially for small and medium-sized companies. The difficult search for a balance between the ecological transition and the stability of the economic system is a central theme in public debate, often polarization seems to make the meeting point impossible.
The Industrial Emissions Directive (IED)
Open dialogue between the institutions of the European Union and the territories on paper is described as a priority, but sometimes keeping opposing demands together is almost impossible. The European Parliament has definitively approved the agreement reached with the Member States on the revision of the Industrial Emissions Directive (IED) with 393 votes in favour, 173 against and 49 abstentions, and of the regulation on the new Industrial Emissions Portal with 506 votes in favour, 82 against and 25 abstentions. The new rules, as reported on the European Parliament website, "aim to reduce harmful emissions from industrial plants and large pig and poultry farms to protect human health and the environment". In this case in particular, pig and poultry farms are compared to industrial plants of any other kind and consequently an adjustment is requested to make the emission limits more stringent.
This law will involve pig farms with more than 350 livestock units, while those that raise pigs extensively or organically are excluded, as well as those that let their animals go outside for a significant period of time in a year. For poultry, the directive applies to farms with more than 300 egg-laying hens, and to farms with more than 280 broiler chickens. For farms that raise both pigs and poultry, the limit will be 380 units in total. For the time being, cattle farms remain excluded, for which reasoning of this type is postponed to 2026.
Coldiretti's opposition
The trade association Coldiretti strongly opposes the Industrial Emissions Directive which, from its point of view, would hit small-medium sized companies, favoring large and very large ones. Coldiretti, which renames the directive “Ammazza-Stalle”, launches an appeal underlining the risk for food sovereignty and for the survival of many Italian businesses, which would suffer competition from companies in states where regulation is less stringent. The president of Coldiretti Ettore Prandini expressed his opinion on the matter: “With the vote on the industrial emissions directive, the European Union has lost yet another opportunity to reverse the trend, abandoning the follies of green extremism that risks closing thousands of farms, caught between an increasingly suffocating bureaucracy and unfair competition from abroad. We will not stop – adds Prandini – and we will ask the new Parliament to intervene to correct those choices that penalize Italian and European farmers”.
Also affected by this regulation that concerns pig and poultry farming would be companies producing Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) products, an element of no small importance for Italian exports. Coldiretti also highlights some data that give the size of the sphere of influence of this directive: Italian farming represents 35% of the entire national agriculture, for a supply chain that is worth approximately 55 billion euros, with a significant impact from the employment point of view where there are approximately 800 thousand people working in the entire supply chain.
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