{"id":1135,"date":"2018-06-21T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-06-20T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/uncategorized\/1135\/eu-court-tells-germany-to-cut-the-crap\/"},"modified":"2019-11-06T09:33:50","modified_gmt":"2019-11-06T08:33:50","slug":"eu-court-tells-germany-to-cut-the-crap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/issues\/nature-food\/1135\/eu-court-tells-germany-to-cut-the-crap\/","title":{"rendered":"EU court tells Germany to cut the crap"},"content":{"rendered":"

Industrial farming to blame for manure polluting water, Greenpeace<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) has ruled that Germany breached EU law by allowing manure runoff from farms to pollute water.
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\u00a0<\/span>The court found that Germany allowed an excessive use of manure as a fertiliser, in violation of the limits set out in the EU\u2019s nitrates directive, which aims to reduce water pollution caused by nitrates from agricultural sources.<\/span><\/p>\n

Greenpeace EU agriculture policy director Marco Contiero<\/strong> said: \u201c<\/em><\/span>Manure doesn\u2019t appear out of nowhere \u2013 industrial livestock farming is the clear culprit. We\u2019re up to our necks in crap and the solution is not to stand on our tippy toes, but to drain the slurry. The manure problem isn\u2019t only in Germany, a good start would be for the EU to stop funding the factory farms that pump it out.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The ruling by the Court of Justice echoes warnings by <\/span>scientific institutions<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>environmental authorities<\/span><\/a> about the need to stop nitrate pollution from manure. Nitrate pollution of waterways can cause blooms of algae, which drain the water of oxygen, choking fish and other wildlife. <\/span>Nitrates can also be converted into toxic nitrite<\/span><\/a> in the human body, which is particularly dangerous for children and pregnant women. Researchers <\/span>have estimated that nitrogen pollution costs the EU <\/span>up to \u20ac320 billion every year<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Germany will now have to comply with the Court decision, or face a new infringement procedure from the European Commission. This infringement procedure could result in a second Court ruling imposing Germany to pay fines, if it is found to still be in breach of EU law.<\/span><\/p>\n

Contacts:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Marco Contiero – Greenpeace EU agriculture policy director<\/strong>: +32 477 777034, <\/span>marco.contiero@greenpeace.org<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Greenpeace EU press desk<\/strong>:<\/strong> +32 2 274 1911, <\/span>pressdesk.eu@greenpeace.org<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

For breaking news and comment on EU affairs: www.twitter.com\/GreenpeaceEU<\/a><\/p>\n

Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning organisation that acts to change attitudes and behaviour, to protect and conserve the environment and to promote peace. Greenpeace does not accept donations from governments, the EU, businesses or political parties.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Industrial farming to blame for manure polluting water, Greenpeace The Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) has ruled that Germany breached EU law by allowing manure runoff from farms…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":1137,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[26,41],"p4-page-type":[14],"class_list":["post-1135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nature-food","tag-farming","tag-waterpollution","p4-page-type-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1135"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2286,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135\/revisions\/2286"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1135"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eu-unit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=1135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}