Farmer protests block various avenues in Brussels this Thursday with approximately a thousand tractors, reported the police in the Belgian capital, coinciding with the celebration of an EU summit.
“There are approximately a thousand tractors or agricultural machines” at the protest, said a police spokesman, specifying that the mobilized farmers come essentially from Belgium.
Although the authorities initially kept the protesters away from the European summit headquarters, a few hours later Several farmers gathered in front of the European Parliament headquarters lit several bonfires in front of the police cordon that separated them from the access patio to the European Parliament, and they also demolished and They burned a statue of the monument that adorns the center of Luxembourg Square, where they are manifesting.
The Belgian police used hoses to try to put out the nearest fires, but the bonfire in the center of the square with the toppled statue, pieces of cardboard and iron continued to burn until after noon, causing a constant cloud of black smoke that presided over the protest.
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Tractors parked near the European Parliament building in Brussels.
Since early in the morning, the demonstration blocked several streets in the Brussels neighborhood where the European institutions are located. coinciding with the celebration this Thursday of a summit of heads of state and prime ministers of the EU countries.
Hundreds of farmers participated in the rallies to denounce the low prices paid to them by distribution companies, environmental regulations, administrative overload or free trade agreements such as the one that the European Union and the Latin American Mercosur countries have yet to conclude.
Although the wave of protests in the European field was not the topic that the EU leaders planned to discuss at the summit, focused on the unlocking of an aid package for Ukraine, some heads of government, such as the Belgian Prime Minister, Alexander de Croo, defended the need to address this issue at the beginning of the meeting.
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Demonstrators protest in Luxembourg Square, near the European Parliament building in Brussels.
Hours later, when the image of the statue demolished by farmers in the square in front of the European Parliament circulated on networks, De Croo himself regretted this gesture through a publication in X.
The vandalized monument was erected at the end of the 19th century and honors the British industrialist John Cockerill, which promoted the steel and railway sector in Belgium.
De Croo stated that “it is completely wrong to eliminate John Cockerill as a symbol of Belgian industry” and called for avoiding “the clash between agriculture and industry.” “Farmers and entrepreneurs are not opposites. We need them both for a strong and sustainable economy,” the Belgian prime minister wrote in X.
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We remain mobilized because the announced measures do not live up to our expectations and what is at stake
The farmers shouted slogans and They tried to get as close as they could to the European Parliament headquarters, waving banners and many of them also the flags of their EU countries.
Others also spent the morning drinking beer or chatting near the improvised bonfires: in the center of the square, near where the burned statue was burning, they even set up a table with food and drink, amidst the constant sound of horns. the parked tractors that blocked the passage of vehicles along the plaza's road and through its adjacent streets.
The day before, French and Belgian farmers “together” blocked a border access between both countries to denounce trade agreements with countries outside the bloc and demand “strong announcements” this Thursday.
And France, where pressure continues on the highways around Paris, continues to be the epicenter of the agrarian protests. Tension increased on Wednesday with the first arrests, around a hundred.
In the morning, the last 79 farmers arrested for entering the Rungis wholesale market, the food lung of Paris and one of the largest in the world, were released.
The Rural Coordination union, behind the call to block Rungis, has now suggested that farmers address the National Assembly (lower house) in Paris to “meet” with his deputies.
Arnaud Rousseau, leader of the main French agricultural union, the FNSEA, called for “calm” and warned that “expectations are enormous” in the face of the “accumulation of regulations”, although many issues “cannot be resolved in three days.”
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French farmers block part of the A6 motorway in Chilly-Mazarin, south of Paris.
The measures announced by the French government and the concessions of the European Commission, especially the “partial” repeal in 2024 of the obligation to leave 4% of arable land fallow, do not seem to convince them.
Pending possible announcements this Thursday from the government, protests continue throughout the country. Near Perpignan in the south, about 60 tractors slowed traffic on a key highway between France and Spain. “We remain mobilized because the announced measures do not live up to our expectations and what is at stake,” Bruno Vila, a local agricultural leader, told AFP.
(In other news: EU agrees on a new aid package for Ukraine for 50 billion euros)
The mobilization spreads throughout the EU. After France, Germany and ItalyPortuguese farmers took to the country's roads on their tractors this Thursday to demand the “valuation” of their activity.
In Spain, the Minister of Agriculture, Luis Planas, announced that he will receive on Friday the three main unions in the sector, which threatened to mobilize in the “coming weeks.” The Spanish countryside is going through a difficult time due to the drought that has hit it for three years and has significantly reduced the olive and cereal harvests. His unions also denounce the “suffocating bureaucracy” of the EU.
Although with different situations, the same complaints resonate in most countries: too complex EU policy, too low incomes, inflation, foreign competition or accumulation of rules.
AFP and EFE
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