Hundreds of protesting farmers threw eggs and stones, lit fires, poured manure and set off fireworks at the European Parliament to pressure the summit of European leaders to do more to help them on taxes, rising costs and environmental rules.
Following weeks of protests in which tractors blocked roads, ports and city entrances, many farmers had traveled from countries across Europe, including France, Germany and Italy. In Brussels, small groups of protesting farmers tried to break down barriers in front of the European Parliament, but police fired tear gas and water to push them back.
The statue in the square was damaged and major roads in Brussels were blocked by around 1,300 tractors and agricultural trucks bearing slogans “No farmers, no food”. Security personnel in riot gear stood guard behind the barriers where the leaders met at the Council of Europe headquarters.
Clouds of black smoke from a pile of rubber tires filled the air, and at one point police had to hose down burning straw and manure rudely dumped outside the parliament building.
“If you see how many of us are here today and all over Europe, you should have hope,” Kevin Bertens, a Belgian farmer, told Reuters. “You need us. Help us!”
Pierre Sansdrap, a Belgian dairy farmer, told AFP that the protest in Brussels was “symbolically important”. “You have to come here to change things,” he said.
Farmers’ union representatives said they were tired of “too much management in general” and rules telling them how they should farm.
Olivier Devalckeneer from the Fédération Wallonne d’Agriculture said: “We want a change; “We want farming to be protected, not undermined.”
Farmers in different countries in Europe said they were not paid enough for their products, struggled with taxes and green rules, and faced unfair competition from abroad.
Although the farmers’ crisis has not been officially on the agenda of the EU summit, which has so far focused on aid to Ukraine, an EU diplomat said the farmers’ situation was likely to be discussed later in the day.
In a sign of pressure on the French government, president Emmanuel Macron has scheduled a one-on-one meeting with European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen.
Macron’s office said the two would discuss “the future of European agriculture” in the wake of farmers’ protests in France.
The European Commission’s moves have failed to calm the demonstrations and road closures that have spread across Europe’s leading agricultural powers, especially France and Germany. The EU’s moves include a temporary exemption from rules requiring some agricultural land to lie fallow, as well as limits on imports of some Ukrainian agricultural products, for which customs duties will be reduced after Russia’s 2022 invasion.
In France, hundreds of farmers continued to block highways and some attacked supermarkets. Nearly 200 tractors blocked 50 supermarkets in France’s southern Haute-Loire region, criticizing what one local farmers’ union called “inappropriate behavior by major retailers” who are “putting insane pressure on our farmers with suffocating margins”.
After multiple government announcements about aid to farmers failed to quell protests, French prime minister Gabriel Attal announced on Thursday an additional €150 million (£128 million) in aid to farmers in need, although details have yet to be determined.
The pledge appeared to be well received, with two major French farmers’ unions, FNSEA and Jeunes Agriculteurs, saying they would tell their members to suspend protests and lift road blockades across the country.
French farmers have expressed anger at cheap imported food that is becoming increasingly popular among French consumers struggling to make ends meet. Attal promised to make life easier for farmers and better protect them at the French and EU level. This, he said, would include France banning cheap imports of products that use pesticides banned in Europe and making it clear on food labels whether the product has been imported.
Attal also said France wants the EU to publish a “clear” definition of lab-grown meat.
He told a press conference that cultured meat “is not part of what we understand from the French diet” and that France wants “clear legislation at the European level to define what laboratory-grown meat is.”
In January, the agriculture ministers of France, Austria and Italy launched what they called a “culinary alliance” to spark public debate about laboratory-grown meat. Synthetic meat cannot be sold in the EU because it is not authorized by the European Food Safety Authority.
Environmentalists see lab-grown meat as a way to help reduce greenhouse gas production from livestock farming. Animal rights groups also see it as a way to reduce deaths and poor conditions of livestock raised for food.
French Agriculture Minister Marc Fesneau said there would be a “pause” in France’s national plan to reduce pesticide use. He said the pesticide plan “will be put back to the drawing board as long as some of these aspects need to be reworked and simplified.”
All major supermarkets will be inspected for compliance with a law that will guarantee fair prices for farmers’ produce, economy minister Bruno Le Maire said.