Deciphering the phenomenon of land grabbing within the framework of the European Union

Abstract

When we talk about land grabbing, or problems around land, we do not really think that this is a phenomenon that is also occurring within the EU, but rather we think mainly of other parts of the world, such as the Global South, Latin American states or Africa. However, the reality is that in Europe today, the concentration of land under increasingly large farms controlled by fewer hands (partly as a result of land grabbing and reduced access to land for small-scale food producers) is accelerating. The aim of our work is to provide an overall legal, social and political analysis of the phenomenon of land grabbing, particularly of agricultural land, within the EU, presenting the main legal and political challenges that arise ad intra.   We will also focus on the analysis of certain European Directives that have an impact on the Union's policy on biofuels and therefore also on possible ad extra land grabs that are carried out within the framework of the European Union. The issues presented in this work are complex and multidisciplinary, so we can approach them from different perspectives. However, in order to shorten the scope of the study, we have taken into account the basis of land grabbing within the framework of European Union law. In this sense, the scientific method that has been used is the legal-sociological one, insofar as it is the one that we consider the most appropriate for the multidisciplinary approach. This method consists of analyzing the current state of the rules and the interrelationship between the possible legal sources but taking into account the social, economic, political and historical elements that allow to explain the effectiveness, rationale and applicability of the rules. This work has also required the use of a variety of methodological techniques, such as social and legal analysis, legal deduction and induction, description and interdisciplinarity.