Shifa Rahaman
December 22nd, 2015

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Political parties in the blue bloc celebrated the completion of the new agricultural package late last night, with environmental and food minister Eva Kjer Hansen writing on Facebook that the package will ensure agricultural growth, more jobs and a better environment.

However, things are not looking quite so rosy to those parties that lie to the left of the political spectrum.

Not good enough
Last night, both Radikale and Socialdemokraterne chose to leave the talks, citing concerns that the present agreement doesn’t have enough safeguards in place to protect the environment.

“The agreement does not protect our aquatic environment well enough. It results in additional nitrogen pollution in the coming years, and exposes our groundwater to a risk we cannot live with,” Ida Auken, from Radikale, told Ekstra Bladet.

She was particularly critical of the fact that the current package gives farmers the right to use more nitrogen than they do today and that CO2 emissions from agriculture may increase.

“She [Hansen] would rather not make the agreement CO2 neutral. If there are two million pigs more, then Denmark’s climate-load rises, and it’s exactly what we don’t need right now. She has also acknowledged that there will be 2-3000 tons of extra nitrogen generated,” Auken said.

However, she was careful to stress that Radikale was committed to making an effective agricultural package – but that any package would have to strike a balance between growth and the environment.

A black day for Denmark
Simon Kollerup, from Socialdemokraterne, echoed Auken’s statements.

“We left the negotiations because there is a necessary balance between economic growth and more fertilizer in agriculture on the one hand, and nature, environment and climate on the other hand. It is a black day for Denmark when this agriculture and fertilizer policy is being implemented without the necessary environmental protections,” he told Ekstra Bladet.