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.
Good morning from Brussels where farmers have once again taken to the streets to protest on the back of a meeting of EU agriculture ministers who are discussing ways to lighten farmers’ administrative load pic.twitter.com/B1dBljdIkz
“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.
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.
Thomas O’Reilly is an Irish journalist working for The European Conservative in Brussels. He has an educational background in chemical sciences and journalism.
