The European Ministers of Agriculture were welcomed with the sound of horns upon their arrival in Brussels on Monday February 26. More than 900 tractors, according to the Belgian police, had converged on the European capital early in the morning to demonstrate their anger and put pressure on the Twenty-Seven. Coming from Belgium, Italy, Spain, but also, to a lesser extent, Germany, the Netherlands and France, they crisscrossed the city while the Twenty-Seven looked for a solution to their malaise.
1er Already in February, on the occasion of a meeting of European heads of state and government, farmers, perched on their machines, invaded the streets of Brussels. But, this Monday, some of them clearly wanted to fight and confronted the police deployed en masse in the neighborhood of community institutions.
After the blocking of various motorways, the Brussels ring road, various tunnels leading to the city and the road to the airport, scuffles took place until mid-afternoon between demonstrators and the police. Bombarded with various objects, they responded with sprinklers, which were also used to put out numerous tire fires, straw bales and wooden pallets. The farmers’ message was clear: what has been proposed so far is insufficient and they will continue to protest until they get more.
For weeks, they have accused the European Union (EU) of being guilty of many of their ills. In general, they denounce an overly bureaucratic Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), trade agreements to their disadvantage, a costly European Green Deal or even unfair competition from Ukrainian products which, since the start of the war, have entered the internal market without customs duty.
Go harder and faster
A few weeks before the European elections, scheduled for June 6 to 9, the Twenty-Seven, first and foremost France, fear that this discontent will fuel a far-right vote already in strong growth, according to the polls, and fuel ambient euroscepticism. In this context, they urge the Commission to put on the table proposals capable of putting out the looming fire.
Since the end of January, the Commission has already announced two sets of measures to try to respond to the agricultural protest movement which is affecting a large part of the Old Continent. After having decided to exempt farmers from fallowing obligations until June 2025 and burying a regulation which provided for the reduction by half of the use of pesticides, it proposed, last week, a new package which will be detailed in March.
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