Farmers from across Europe staged a mass protest in Brussels today, planned for many weeks, to make a leadership statement demanding that Europe change course away from shutting down agriculture. This is timed with the European Parliamentary elections over June 6-9. For example, messages on banners and signs stated, “Vote Them Out” referring to Green Deal EU toadies; and “More Freedom, Less Brussels!” as well as “No Farmers, No Food.” The Green Deal is a universal target. One sign brandished that “Europe Green Deal = No Proper Meal.”
Farmers are on hand from Poland, Italy, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, France, and elsewhere. Preliminary accounts of the demonstration report hundreds of tractors and thousands of farmers. There were convoys of tractors on several highways into the rally center at the Atomium, north of Brussels. The noon rally included speakers from the countries already cited, as well as from Romania and Spain. The Farmers Defense Force made a video of the rally, posted to a member’s Facebook.
Among the organizing groups are the Farmers Defense Force of Holland and Belgium, the Institute for Agricultural Economy in Poland, and the Landwirdschaft verbindet Deutschland (LSV, Agriculture Unites Germany). There were contingents from many other countries. Farmers’ Defense Force leader Sieta van Keimpema from The Netherlands called upon the farmers to deliver a “political landslide” at the European Parliament elections, as a follow-on to derailing key green agenda planks last February by mass protests. LSV farm spokesman Anthony Robert Lee is running for European Parliament in southern Germany.
The LSV press release for today listed priorities that farmers are demanding, including “withdrawal of the so-called New Green Deal,” “Protection of the EU’s international market,” “Protect and support the European livestock farming and breeding sector,” and others.
At the same time, there were farm actions elsewhere in Europe this week, including by Polish farmers at the Ukraine border, protesting cheap imports imposed by the EU, NATO, and agro-cartels. French farmers in the Pyrenees at the Spanish border are protesting food imports from nations that have far fewer regulations on how commodities are produced.
Support messages from the U.S. came from U.S. Senate candidate from New York Diane Sare, and from Bob Baker for the Schiller Institute-USA on behalf of U.S. farmers and ranchers.
