The anger of farmers has not been completely appeased in Belgium, even if contacts between agricultural unions and the mass distribution sector have, after new blockages of distribution centers, led to some agreements in recent days. The price of meat paid to breeders will increase slightly and a discussion on the purchase of agricultural land by large brands will continue.
The situation was calm in Wallonia on Tuesday February 13, but in Flanders, hundreds of Flemish farmers organized blockades in various places, and in particular on routes leading to the port of Antwerp-Bruges, the economic heart of the region. . In a statement, one of the organizing unions, the Algemeen Boerensyndicaat, deplored “the absence of concrete results” during negotiations with the political world and “long-term promises, formulated by working groups which, after the fact, turn out to be mere places for small talk”.
The demonstrators repeated their opposition to “the overabundance of rules”, national and European, to imports of non-European products and to the advantages granted, according to them, to the ports and industry sectors while employment in agriculture would be neglected. Some farmers, going beyond their traditional organizations, also continue to oppose regional measures aimed at limiting nitrogen emissions.
” All or nothing “
A negotiation between the three main agricultural unions and the regional government was unsuccessful on Monday evening, February 12. It is supposed to resume Thursday February 15 afternoon. Jan Jambon, the minister-president of the Flemish region, canceled a trip to Barcelona to carry out a “technical work” likely, according to him, to allow the conclusion of an agreement. “Thursday, it will be all or nothing”warned the unions.
Mr. Jambon, member of the nationalist party of the Neo-Flemish Alliance (N-VA), had considered that no one had any interest in seeing the port of Antwerp-Bruges blocked and he had also called, in vain, to “everyone’s responsibility”. His party is engaged in a tug-of-war with Vlaams Belang, the far-right party, which has largely taken over the protest movement. And, within its coalition, the Christian Democrats, traditional defenders of peasants, demand more favorable measures than those envisaged at this stage.