Can Denmark sell green agriculture to a skeptical EU?
As Copenhagen takes the helm of the Council, its bold climate credentials face the hard grind of EU politics — and a bloc more interested in competitiveness than carbon cuts.
By LUCIA MACKENZIE and BARTOSZ BRZEZIŃSKIin Brussels
Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images
Denmark’s incoming EU presidency is set to coincide with a bruising debate over the future of farming in Europe, and Copenhagen wants climate at the center of it.
Fresh off a historic domestic deal to tax agricultural emissions, Danish officials are touting their country’s “high ambitions” for green policy. Minister for Green Transition Jeppe Bruus said Denmark hopes to infuse its six-month presidency with lessons from home, where collaboration with farmers and a sweeping Green Tripartite Agreement last year marked a rare political consensus on climate and agriculture.
But as Denmark prepares to steer the Council of the EU from July, it finds itself pitching a climate-forward message to a bloc moving in the opposite direction. After more than a year of farmer unrest, a rightward shift in the European Parliament, and pullback from Ursula von der Leyen’s first-term Green Deal, the stage is set for a presidency marked more by firefighting than forward motion.
“Look, we can actually solve a lot of those crises that we are in — the climate crisis, the biodiversity crisis, the focus on creating jobs and growth — and deliver on food security … in a sustainable way,” Bruus told POLITICO in an interview. “We see this as a task that combines what we’re good at.”
That pitch may resonate with green-minded stakeholders, but Denmark’s room for maneuver is limited.
Domestic success, European constraints
Last year, Denmark became the first country in the world to legislate a tax on greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture — something even climate-progressive nations like New Zealand couldn’t manage. Under the so-called Green Tripartite Agreement, livestock emissions will be taxed starting in 2030, with revenue earmarked for green initiatives and farmer support.
The deal was driven by necessity as much as ambition. Agriculture accounts for nearly 29 percent of Denmark’s overall greenhouse gas emissions and around 80 percent of its methane and nitrous oxide emissions — largely from livestock and fertilizer use.
With a legally binding goal to cut national emissions by 70 percent by 2030, the government concluded that without action on farming, the math wouldn’t add up. The Green Tripartite Agreement aimed to correct course by combining a phased-in tax with funding to support biodiversity, peatland restoration and farmer adaptation — all while keeping the sector economically viable.
This was not imposed from above. The deal was brokered through Denmark’s traditional tripartite model, bringing together government, farmers, industry and environmental groups. As Bruus himself noted, it followed carbon taxes on Danish industry and relied on a broader societal consensus about climate responsibility.
Bruus said the government had deliberately avoided designing the tax “in opposition to the farming community,” and emphasized that every krone raised would be reinvested back into the sector.
The EU, however, doesn’t really do social partnership. It does “trilogues” — opaque three-way negotiations between the Parliament, Council and the European Commission, often shielded from the kind of inclusive dialogue Copenhagen embraced at home.
And while Denmark’s domestic conditions allowed for a relatively smooth political landing, the same cannot be said of Brussels. The backlash to green rules — both organized and opportunistic — has pulled the center of gravity toward deregulation and “competitiveness,” a favorite watchword in the Commission’s post-2024 narrative reset.
Green mandate, shrinking momentum
The timing couldn’t be more sensitive. The Danish presidency will take place during early discussions on the EU’s next medium-term budget running from 2028 to 2034, with implications for farm spending and the future Common Agricultural Policy. It will also likely inherit hot files from previous presidencies, including rules on new genomic techniques and animal transport — issues guaranteed to stir both emotional and political backlash.
The political headwinds are gale force.
Last year’s farmer protests prompted von der Leyen to launch a “strategic dialogue” with the agriculture sector — one that while heavy on green promises, has so far yielded a legislative shift emphasizing income security and global competitiveness. Meanwhile, the EU looks set to loosen more green requirements on farmers, as governments across the spectrum embrace softer rules to ease pressure on farmers and public administrations alike.
Even Denmark’s climate credibility isn’t immune to scrutiny. Critics of the Green Tripartite Agreement argue the agricultural carbon tax is too modest to drive systemic change — it starts at just 120 kroner (€16) per metric ton in 2030, rising to 300 kroner by 2035, less than half the industrial rate.
Others point to its heavy reliance on voluntary measures and unproven technologies like biochar — the production of black carbon from biomass — and methane inhibitors. Still others argue that it risks punishing farmers who have set about reducing their emissions through other means.
“It’s a start, not a solution,” said one senior EU diplomat familiar with the file. “Denmark has credibility on green agriculture, but selling that model to 26 other countries will be a much harder job.”
Not so united front
Denmark finds itself politically isolated on green agricultural policy, according to Alan Matthews, professor emeritus of European agricultural policy at Trinity College Dublin. While it has taken the lead in tackling farming emissions, most other governments are reluctant to follow.
Ireland, another heavy agricultural emitter, is scrambling to meet its climate targets without tanking its dairy and meat industries. Germany now has a conservative-led government with little appetite for green experimentation. Even at home, right-wing parties have questioned the climate tax, with farmers warning of job losses and production leakage.
Denmark could find an ally in the Commission — but not necessarily where it matters most, Matthews said.
“Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen and DG AGRI are not prioritizing a climate or green agenda, and the buzzwords now for agricultural policy are competitiveness and resilience, meaning adapting to climate change impacts,” he said, referring to the agricultural wing of the Commission that’s in charge of the CAP budget.
By contrast, Matthews noted, the Commission’s climate wing, DG CLIMA, “is aware that agriculture will need to contribute much more if the EU’s ambitious 90 percent reduction target by 2040 is to be achieved, and is open to investigating new policy instruments. But DG CLIMA is not central to the future CAP negotiations, so its ambitions do not carry much weight.”
The Danish presidency is unlikely to radically reshape EU agriculture policy, but it may help inject long-term thinking into a space dominated by short-term panic.
The upcoming EU Bioeconomy Strategy — expected in late 2025 — could offer an opening for the Danes to lead on a less politically toxic agenda, linking sustainability with industrial opportunity.
Bruus has stressed that farmers won’t go green without a business case. At home, the Green Land Fund and other fiscal measures have sweetened the pill of new taxes. But at the EU level, any equivalent offer would require a major shift in the bloc’s budget logic — and a willingness to match rhetoric with revenue.
That’s a tough sell, especially amid competing demands on the EU’s purse strings and an upcoming debate over who gets what in the post-2027 CAP.
If Denmark is to make a mark, it may be less about securing bold new legislation and more about keeping the flame of the green transition alive at a time when many would rather extinguish it.
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