By Kate Abnett, Bart Biesemans, Hicham and Oulichki
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Farmers drove hundreds of tractors into Brussels on Tuesday to protest against the European Union’s environmental policies, but the action was shunned by mainstream farming groups who said it did not reflect their members’ concerns.
A few days before the European Parliament election on June 6-9, farmers from the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland and Germany travelled to Brussels to protest against EU green policies that organisers said undermine the competitiveness of European farmers.
“We came from Poland, because we know that the source of our problem is in Brussels. Because we want to change, deeply change, the Green Deal and all restrictions that came to our farms,” Damian Murawiec told Reuters at the protest in Laeken, in northern Brussels.
It is the latest in a months-long wave of farmers’ protests across Europe, where agricultural workers have denounced low food prices, excessive regulation and free-trade deals they say leave them struggling to compete with cheap imports.
But with police counting around 500 tractors, Tuesday’s mobilisation – organised by Dutch lobby group Farmers Defence Force and supported by right-wing and far-right groups – was smaller than the previous farmers’ protests held in Brussels earlier this year.
Farmers Defence Force – whose secretary Sieta van Keimpema has described concerns over climate change as “hysterical” – said politicians from Belgian far-right party Vlaams Belang and the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists group would address the protest in the afternoon.
Europe’s biggest farming lobby Copa Cogeca, and farming association La Via Campesina each said they and their members would not participate.
“A few days before the European elections, we reject this attempt by small groups that have no concrete proposals to address farmers’ issues to hijack farmer concerns to push their own party interests,” a spokesperson for Via Campesina said.
(Reporting by Kate Abnett, Bart Biesemans, Hicham Oulichki; editing by David Evans)
Comments