From early on Tuesday, tractors began to arrive in Brussels, blocking the road that leads to the offices of the European Council and European Commission.
Hundreds of protesting farmers gathered in the Belgian capital, setting tyres and wooden pallets on fire, which sent plumes of smoke into the air. Some stood in front of a barricade and launched eggs at riot police.
The demonstration, smaller and more subdued than similar protests in recent months, was taking aim at climate change reforms and the excessive red tape farmers say they are facing.
The latest protest coincided with a meeting of agriculture ministers, who discussed market conditions in the sector and the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (Cap). On Monday, police set up barbed-wire barricades at checkpoints around EU offices in the centre of Brussels, in anticipation of the convoy of tractors.
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When they arrived, the farmers dumped a pile of manure in front of one barricade, and spread hay on the street. A smaller group of younger protesters let off fireworks and bangers, with some throwing eggs at police, who responded with a water cannon. Several of the protesters had come prepared with ear buds to muffle the sound of blaring tractor horns.
Corentin Jaques, (26), vice-president of the Belgian federation of young farmers, said the farmer protests across Europe had made a “real impact”.
“I am a farmer in the south of Belgium, we produce milk, we produce beef and also cereals a bit,” he said.
“I was always positive for the future, I am always thinking ‘it will go better,’ he said. “One thing that I am afraid of is the extreme variance in prices. We don’t have a midterm or long-term vision and that makes me a bit anxious,” he said.
The leaders of several EU countries, the European Parliament’s centre-right group which includes Fine Gael, and the European Commission have all moved to try to quell discontent among farmers in the run-up to the European elections this June. The Nature Restoration Law, a significant piece of legislation introducing measures to restore nature on land and sea, is at risk of being the latest casualty of this policy shift.
The proposed law, which narrowly passed through the European Parliament, “does not work for Belgian farmers”, said Stijn Zelderloo, a second-generation farmer from Dilbeek, an area in Flanders just outside of Brussels.
Farmers were already facing a “spaghetti of rules and laws” that were often complicated and difficult to follow, he said.
Zelderloo said he was unsure about the aggressive methods used in the recent protests.
“I don’t know if it is necessary to burn Brussels to hear your voice . . . When there is too much violence and fire, a little bit [of] the message will be lost,” he said.
Ségolène Plomteux (28), who works as a policy adviser for the Walloon Federation of Agriculture, said farmers in Belgium and beyond were “fed up”.
The Green New Deal, the major environmental policy platform of the European Commission, was drawn up in 2019, she said.
“Since then the context has changed so much that it is difficult to have the same measure implemented today, we cannot continue as it was before,” she said.
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