Agricultural bureaucracy in the EU and in the Member States is a self-created monster. Farmers and agricultural officials of all kinds call for “cutting red tape” so loudly and so regularly that the average media consumer has long internalised the EU as the evil bureaucratic bogeyman. Yet the punchline is that the agricultural sector itself created this monster and has been feeding it ever since.

Bureaucracy loves its routines – and prevents the long-overdue change
Like all bureaucracies, the agricultural bureaucracy that has grown over decades derives its legitimacy from administratively managing complex market interventions such as subsidies or quota schemes. For that reason, it has no fundamental interest in leaner processes and simple instruments. That is why agricultural bureaucracy defends its areas of responsibility, such as pesticide advisory services, instead of promoting farming systems that safeguard biodiversity and are less vulnerable to pests and damaging events. This agricultural bureaucracy can only endorse change for as long as it requires new administrative resources.

nature solidarity puts its finger on the sore spot: We demonstrate how, at European and national level, the self-interest of a wide range of institutions ensures that it is not new, low-bureaucracy and environmentally friendly market mechanisms that steer the agricultural sector, but that bureaucratic routines continue to shape what happens and preserve the destructive status quo.