Smoke rises from a fire burning as Belgian farmers use their tractors to block the European Union headquarters, as they protest over price pressures, taxes and green regulation, grievances shared by farmers across Europe, on the day of the EU summit in Brussels, Belgium February 1, 2024. REUTERS/Yves Herman
BRUSSELS/PARIS (Reuters) - Columns of tractors lined up in the streets of Brussels early on Thursday to press a summit of European Union leaders to do more to help farmers with taxes, rising costs and cheap imports.
One tractor displayed a banner saying "If you love the earth, support those who manage it" as farmers from Belgium and other European countries try to make themselves heard by EU leaders meeting later.
Another banner read: "No farmers, no food."
The square in front of the EU Parliament was filled with tractors and farmers set up bonfires and let off firecrackers. A few threw eggs at the building.
Major thoroughfares in Brussels, the heart of the European Union, were blocked by around 1,000 tractors, according to a police estimate.
Security personnel in riot gear stood guard behind barriers at the EU headquarters where the leaders are due to meet.
"If you see with how many people we are here today, and if you see it's all over Europe, so you must have hope. We must have hope that these people see that farming is necessary. It's the food, you know," said Kevin Bertens, a farmer from just outside Brussels.
Farmers say they are not being paid enough, are choked by taxes and green rules and face unfair competition from abroad.
They have already secured several measures, including the bloc's executive Commission proposals to limit farm imports from Ukraine and loosen some environmental regulations on fallow lands.
In France, where farmers have been protesting for weeks, the government has dropped plans to gradually reduce subsidies on agricultural diesel and promised more aid.
But farmers say that is not enough, and protests have spread to countries including Belgium, Italy, Spain and Portugal
The protests across Europe come ahead of European Parliament elections in June in which the far right, for whom farmers represent a growing constituency, is seen making gains.
While the farmers' crisis is not officially on the agenda of the EU summit, it is bound to be discussed, at least on the margins.
Already, with all eyes on Viktor Orban as the other 26 EU leaders wants to convince him at the summit to join a plan to offer stable financing to Ukraine, the Hungarian Prime Minister made a point of meeting farmers overnight.
"We need to find new leaders who truly represent the interests of the people," his spokesman quoted him as saying, referring to the European Parliament elections.
"The @EU_Commission should represent the interests of European farmers against those of Ukraine, not the other way around," he quoted Orban as saying.
In France, where farmers stepped up protests at the start of the week, the impact of dozens of blockades is starting to be felt, said Eric Hemar, the head of a federation of transport and logistics employers.
"We did a poll among our federation members: all transport firms are impacted (by the farmers' protest) and have lost over the past 10 days about 30% of their revenue, because we are not able to deliver on time or with delays," he told franceinfo broadcaster.
(Reporting by Geert De Clercq, Nicolas Delame and Kate Etringer in Paris, Johnny Cotton, Yves Herman, Kate Abnett, Phil Blenkinsop in Brussels, Piotr Lipinski in Gdansk; Writing by Ingrid Melander; Editing by Alison Williams)
