Biting the hand that feeds you
Sicco Mansholt’s European project
One of the most prominent figures featured in Frank Westerman’s tour de force De Graanrepubliek - and in Groninger history - is that of Sicco Mansholt: president of the European Commission, minister of agriculture, mayor of Wieringermeer, resistance fighter and last but not least, Groninger farmer. Mansholt, who promised to be the Groninger golden boy, the one to bring the north closer to The Hague, still remains a controversial figure, twenty-three years after his passing. Mansholt, the red farmer, the evergreen contrarian who saved the Dutch farms from falling prices and international competition, had to see in 1971 a black coffin with his name painted on, carried by farmers protesting in the wake of his European agricultural plan. An excellent character for a Spin This dilemma, then. The main questions: are principles universal? Can one as a politician expect mercy from a disfavored constituency?
Minister of agriculture: nooit meer honger
Post-war Netherlands was far from being a happy place. Apart from the misery of war, it was of paramount importance to restore economic stability and boost production for a growing population that had too little for too long. A content volk was key to avoiding another European war, a central concern. As minister of agriculture, Mansholt saw the need to protect farmers and provide them with certainty. This, he envisioned in a classically socialist way: he established a minimum price for grain, which reassured farmers, providing them with the ability to plan ahead and, in turn, greatly encouraged them to invest more and mechanise. Part of this policy was protectionist, imposing heavy levies to protect the sector from the growing foreign industry that produced at a considerable lower cost. Mansholt’s recipe was a resounding success. Partly thanks to the broader economic bonanza, production soared and large scale farms mechanised at great speeds. He went on to serve as minister of agriculture from the end of the war until 1958, when he was appointed European Commissioner.
Mansholt Plan: the European years
The experience during his time as minister of agriculture made Mansholt the perfect candidate for EU common agricultural policy. Prime Minister Drees, when told of his appointment, famously cried ‘Finally we are rid of him’. Dutch politicians could finally go about their business without the pig-headed, stalwart socialist Mansholt.
As vice-president of the Commission, Sicco had to tackle an existential threat to the future of European integration: the over-supply of produce, partly a consequence of his previous policies on the national level. The solution he brought to the Commission rested on three pillars: old school socialist central planning, protection of large scale, efficient farmers, and an elimination of five million small scale farmers. Early retirement plans, ample vacations and subsidized education for farmers that were to change professions were all encompassed in the Mansholt plan. When the European farmers took it to the streets in 1971 to protest the plan, a sign held by a protester read ‘Hitler exterminated the Jews, Mansholt exterminated the farmers’. In a way, they were being robbed of their livelihood and their tradition.
The upheaval created by this plan made the Commission reject it in its original state and only pass it after heavy editing. Concretely, the systematic favouring of large scale, mechanised farms meant that though many of the European farmers did retire early or changed professions, the surplus problem remained: technological innovation and economies of scale exponentially increased production of the remaining farmers in the long run. A truly mixed bag.
After a long, torrid love affair with German-American green activist Petra Kelly, Sicco returned to spend his last years with his wife Henny in the countryside of Drenthe. He spent the latter period of his life performing a harsh, critical assessment of his own ouvre, in light of the radically green, socialist ideology he discovered and adhered to in his later years. A reminder that often in politics, much like in life, one size does not fit all, and the right choices simply do not exist.
