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what the orchards say about the European Union

Go to the fields! Think of the orchards!

Sophie Wilmès’ government encourages helping horticulturalists and farmers. The Restricted Council of Ministers announced several measures yesterday to allow the harvest to start: you have to find arms. Usually, seasonal workers pick the April and May strawberries and asparagus in Belgium. 9 out of 10 are foreigners, the vast majority of whom are European nationals from Romania, Bulgaria or Poland.

This time, most of them could not arrive on Belgian territory, many European states having chosen to close their borders to slow the spread of the Coronavirus. The Walloon Minister for Agriculture estimates that Wallonia must find 1000 workers in the very short term. And Flanders much more: given the importance of these crops in the north of Belgium, Minister Hilde Crevits estimates that 7,000 people will be needed for this end of April and another 10,000 in May. A call that begins to be heard, timidly.


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The Wilmès government therefore sought who and how to convince. Among the measures adopted this Saturday, he decided that temporarily unemployed workers could temporarily help horticulture without loss of income. Students will be able to work more days. And asylum seekers in the process will be able to work.

This story of ripe fruit that moves lines, it crosses the entire European Union.

The whole Union under the pressure of picking

Germany closed its borders to seasonal workers on March 25. She backtracked this week. There may be 40,000 of them joining German fields and orchards in April and May. A largely insufficient figure, has already commented on the sector.

France has estimated that 200,000 seasonal workers will be needed for picking and working in the fields for the next three months. Farmers in Spain have announced that strawberries should remain on the plants.

In Italy, the federation of Coldiretti farmers estimates that a quarter of “made in Italy” food goes from plant to plate thanks to foreign hands. In the ranks of these seasonal workers, the Romanians are the most represented: there are more than 100,000 working each year on Italian farms.


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In Romania, the pandemic has already caused the loss of a million jobs, notably by these border closings, according to figures relayed by the AFP.

We are rediscovering it: it is a whole sector which depends on the free movement of workers in the European area. Several hundred thousand households, in Romania, Bulgaria or Poland, who live in spring and summer thanks to this transhumance. And a large part of the horticultural and agricultural production of the west of the Union which is today compromised by the resurgence of borders in the European space.

Orchards as revealers… of the reality of seasonal workers

Why so few local workers and so many foreign seasonal workers in crops west of the Union? What is most important in the absence of local workers under fruit trees: the lack of attractiveness of these jobs or the financial interest of farmers to hire foreign seasonal workers instead?

All over Europe, these are precarious jobs: precarious status and precarious income, just over 9 euros gross per hour in Belgium.

This income is identical for a Belgian or foreign European seasonal worker, on the principle of “equal work, equal pay”. However, payroll taxes will be cheaper to hire a seasonal worker from Romania than a seasonal worker from Belgium.

Orchards as revealers … of the interdependence of states

The evidence is there, in any case: the cultures of the western states of the European Union need workers from the east and vice versa.

Each state faced with this labor shortage is looking for local solutions, by putting its hand in the portfolio. Allow workers whose company is stationary, Horeca workers, the unemployed, asylum seekers, to do these pickups, under specific security conditions.

But everywhere, operators doubt that these inexperienced workers will suffice. TheUrgence therefore pleads for a relaxation of the borders: the about-face of Germany testifies to it, but other states keep closed doors.

Faced with this European problem, what European policy?

For the problem of seasonal workers, as for many decisions relating to health and borders in recent weeks, the Commission issues recommendations that the states follow, in dispersed order … or do not follow.

The European Commission had thus launched a call on March 30, in the form of “guidelines”, of guidelines. Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen urged EU member states to let seasonal workers cross borders. She argued for the preservation of the Single Market, the production and supply chains of our stores.

His speech was not heard everywhere. Hungary or Austria do not yet allow their national territory to be crossed, preventing tens of thousands of seasonal workers from Romania or Bulgaria from reaching their destination by land.


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This is also what the orchards say today: the difficulty of adopting coordinated policies at European level even when the evil is European.

A difficulty that will have to be overcome during the fundamental stage that is looming: deconfinement. European coordination will be essential between member states to initiate the reopening of borders, the return of the free movement of people, by minimizing the risk of second waves of contamination.

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