Europe’s farming sector is facing a big crisis and must “profoundly” change its rules, Emmanuel Macron has said after a European Union leaders’ summit in Brussels was overshadowed by protesting farmers hurling eggs, dumping manure and lighting fires.
Speaking as hundreds of farmers from Belgium, the Netherlands and elsewhere blocked streets around the European parliament with tractors, the French president said there should be a joint EU mechanism to guarantee fair prices paid to farmers by food giants and supermarkets. He said regulations should be simplified, after weeks of farmer protests across Europe have blockaded motorways.
Although agriculture had not been on the agenda of the leaders’ summit, the proximity and intensity of the spreading farmers’ protests made it impossible for politicians in Brussels to ignore.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Europe’s farming sector is facing a big crisis and must “profoundly” change its rules, Emmanuel Macron has said after a European Union leaders’ summit in Brussels was overshadowed by protesting farmers hurling eggs, dumping manure and lighting fires.
Praising farmers’ “remarkable resilience”, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said she was working closely with EU member states “to address the immediate challenges”.
After weeks in which farmers from Germany, France, Belgium, Italy and Greece protested, hundreds descended on Brussels on Thursday to put more pressure on European leaders to do more to help them with taxes, rising costs and environmental rules.
Palls of black smoke from a pyre of rubber tyres filled the air and at one point police were forced to hose down burning straw and manure that had been unceremoniously dumped in front of the parliament building.
But the union chief said new protests could be held if “initial results” from the promises were not seen by the time France’s main agriculture trade fair opened at the end of this month.
There are too many regulations, the salaries are not high enough and now we are facing imports because of the Mercosur deal where farmers don’t even have to have the same standards as us,” said Emile Herbiet, a Belgian blue cattle-breeder who had come to Brussels to protest on Thursday.
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