After tractorcades first began causing traffic jams on the E42 highway leading to Brussels on Jan. 26, Belgian farmers on Monday morning (Jan. 29) have now launched similar actions on other highways and national roads, with the aim of blocking the Belgian capital and seat of the EU Commission by no later than Thursday, Feb. 1. On Jan. 30, the Walloon Federation of Agriculture (FWA) announced that during this week, “targeted and surprising actions will take place again on agribusiness sites.” the FWA announced.
The FWA says there is an “urgent need to achieve real administrative simplification.” It is calling for a “thorough” review of the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and an “economic, environmental, and social assessment of all the legislation and restrictions it has imposed on the [farm] sector in recent years.”
The FWA demands very much resemble the catalog of demands of the protesting French farmers, who also point to correcting the entire agricultural policy of the European Union. French farmers drove their tractors to the city limits of Paris today, nearly causing a total blockade of the access roads, and prevented only by a flexible but major police deployment to ensure that one track of the highways was kept open to allow access to the city.
