Farmers demonstrate in Brussels ahead of a crucial meeting of the 27
The tractors are returning to Brussels this Monday, February 26, on the occasion of the meeting of agriculture ministers in the European capital to discuss measures to simplify the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
Hundreds of demonstrators invaded the streets of the European district in the morning, at the call of the main Belgian unions and the European coordination Via Campesina.
Objective: maintain pressure on institutions.
Angry farmers demonstrated on Monday February 26 in the streets of Brussels, Belgium.
The police had to intervene in certain places to prevent excesses.
AP - Harry Nakos
By: RFI Follow
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With our correspondent in Brussels
,
Laure Broulard
Tractors stationed near the Parliament, the Council and the Commission, but also firecrackers, fires and hay dumped in the streets of the European district... The farmers protesting on February 26 believe that Brussels has not, so far, no concrete response to their demands.
Guillaume, a grain farmer from Wallonia, asks for more:
“
In particular a revaluation of the price of cereal, of milk, of all our materials in fact, because we are very poorly paid in relation to the investment that it requires, in relation to the time that it requires.
»
Next to him, Cyril, a meat producer from the Ciney region, criticizes free trade agreements, accused of generating
unfair competition
for European products: “
We import things that do not have the same standards as what We are forced to produce.
That's really the… So we don't know how to be profitable compared to them.
»
Another demand of the demonstrators, coming mainly from Belgium, but also from Italy:
the relaxation of standards
, mainly environmental.
Mathieu is a large-scale cereal grower.
He explains: “
We are exhausted from being collapsed under standards that make no sense, we are really generally fed up, we are tired.
It's the burnout of agriculture, we'll say.
»
Tension rose a notch in the morning when demonstrators tried to force the barriers placed by the police around the European institutions.
The police responded using water cannons.
Also read: What are the keys to the agricultural crisis shaking Europe?
The program of the meeting of European ministers of agriculture and fisheries
The Commission is proposing a series of short and medium-term solutions, based on complaints presented by Member States: a relaxation of the conditions imposed on breeders to receive CAP aid by the end of March, the simplification of certain controls with the objective of halving the number of visits to farms, or even a better definition of force majeure which allows farmers to escape the constraints of the CAP in the event of drought or floods...
Brussels is therefore continuing its appeasement gestures, after initial concessions at the end of January on fallow rules, Ukrainian imports accused of lowering prices and environmental regulations.
So far, this has not been enough to defuse the anger of the agricultural world.
The main Belgian unions are therefore calling for a new mobilization in the streets of the European district.
Some agricultural organizations are also urging the European Parliament to amend or reject, Tuesday February 27 in Strasbourg, a key text of the Green Deal on the “restoration of nature”, relating to the rewetting of peatlands.
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