16:15—A successful day for farmers taking their message to the halls of power: The EU’s green policies are bleeding the industry dry.
15:50—Protests appear to have peaked as tractors move home.
15:40—Horns blaring as tractors pass Hotel Sofitel, popular with visiting EU leaders.
15:25—Tractors moving onto Place Jourdain after attempting to block meeting of agriculture ministers.
13:35—Protesting farmers clashing with police are met with CS gas and water cannons.
13:00—Spanish and Italian farmers joining the very international protest.
12:40—“Our end is your hunger”: Farmers on the ground explain how Mercosur, Ukraine, and Green Deal spell an end to their industry.
12:15—Passionate speeches against Mercosur, the extreme Left impacting EU policy, and plight of family farmers outside Commission building.
12:12—Cannisters producing white smoke deployed on farmers adjacent to Schumann station.
12:05—Protesters tear down police blockade.
11:55—Farmers plan to block EU Agricultural Ministers currently meeting at Council building in a coordinated effort around the Schumann area.
11:30—The smell of burning tires is in the air just metres from the EU headquarters in Brussels on Monday morning, as a coalition of Belgian, Dutch, Italian, and French farmers successfully brought the city centre to a standstill. Protestors oppose the impact of the EU’s Green Deal on their livelihoods.
Farmers began pouring into Brussels from around 1:00 a.m. last night, before effectively controlling access to the European Parliament, Council and Commission buildings by forming strategic blockades. EU staff were ordered to work from home in an emergency email circulated over the weekend.
“Our number one demand … is to guarantee a dignified income for farmers,” declared one farmer in an interview with Belgian media.
Farmers have organised their protest to coincide with a meeting of EU agricultural ministers, building on the success of over a thousand tractors shutting down the city earlier this month during an EU Council meeting.
It’s likely that the demonstrations will last all day. Federal police struggle to contain various protest groups cutting off key transport junctions.
Farmers have already dismissed earlier concessions made by Brussels on climate policy. Now MEPs are expected to vote on a hotly contested rewilding bill on Tuesday—one which farmers say would make large tracts of the EU economically unfarmable.
