Long columns of tractors—1,399 in total, rolled into Brussels this morning to lay siege to the EU Summit held there today. Farmers from Belgium, France, Germany, and other EU countries took part in the protest, against the backdrop of powerful farmers’ protests throughout European countries. The EU Commission indicated the intent to grant some concessions: Farmers can cultivate the 4% of their farmland that the EU had previously ordered to remain fallow, and farmers can sell their production off this land, without being exempted from the planned agricultural supports. The Commission is proposing measures to limit any uncontrolled increase in Ukrainian agricultural imports by offering guarantees to farmers, and the EU is now dangling new import “safeguards” before the farmers. But still the EU Commission says the Ukraine (cartel) poultry, sugar, and grains must continue to come into EU countries.
The concessions are too small to convince the farmers that their protests should now end. Spokesmen from farmers’ associations in several countries made clear that they want a more profound overhaul of EU agricultural policies, and to achieve that, protests will continue. Seaports, like Zeebrugge, Belgium, will be targets of tractorcades and road blockades, as are the storage warehouses of the major supermarkets now.
Italian Deputy Prime Minister and Transport Minister Matteo Salvin (Lega), supported the farmers and blamed the EU Commission for the protests. “The tractors that are on the roads all over Europe have problems with the current European Commission,” he said, according to ANSA news agency. He described the agricultural policy under the leadership of EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen as “disastrous.”
