AFPThe protests at Daussoulx in Belgium
NOS News•today, 07:54•Changed today, 09:48
Demonstrating farmers are also marching through Belgium this morning, creating a busy morning rush hour. Especially on the Brussels ring road, motorists are stuck. Several highways and junctions have been blocked since yesterday morning.
The farmers want to reopen the roads during the morning, says a spokesperson for the agricultural organization Fédération des Jeunes Agriculteurs (FJA), but more protests are planned for the coming week.
The protests started early yesterday, with around 400 tractors taking to the roads. Roads are blocked at the Daussoulx junction, about 65 kilometers below Brussels. The ring is also closed at Halle, just south of the capital, the broadcaster reports VRT news. In Sint-Truiden, which is located east of Brussels, about a hundred farmers took to the road to take action at a football stadium.
The farmers have been campaigning all week due to declining incomes and strict European environmental standards. A lot of money has to be spent on this, while production costs only increase and sales prices remain the same. Farming is no longer profitable for the demonstrators. Belgian farmers, just like in the Netherlands, also have to deal with a nitrogen agreement that was approved by the Flemish Parliament last week.
“If the politicians really accommodate us, we may leave the locations more quickly, but nothing has been decided at the moment,” says Guillaume Van Binst, secretary of the agricultural organization FJA against the Belgian newspaper The newspapaer.
Around the table
The Walloon Minister of Agriculture Willy Borsus has now announced with colleagues to sit down “to see what we can do”. According to Belgium correspondent Kysia Hekster, this will happen tomorrow, with three agricultural ministers from Flanders, Wallonia and also at federal level in Belgium.
“And they have also said that they want to consult at European level. Some of the complaints are about European climate and nature policy. And it has been announced that discussions will also be held with the other ministers of agriculture, because there are issues everywhere in the European Union protests,” Hekster said.
The FJA is satisfied with that first attempt, but the actions continue to reinforce the message. Lotte Arkens of the Groene Kring Limburg, a youth organization for the agricultural sector, agrees. “We have had enough,” she told VRT News. “These are rules upon rules that are becoming untenable and we no longer know which ones still apply and which do not.”
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AFP
Protests near Halle, Belgium
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EPA
Farmers set fire to tires in Daussoulx
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AFP
A tractor with the text ‘death of entrepreneurs’ in Daussoulx
Motorists who take to the road today are asked to avoid the Brussels area. Roads around the capital are at a standstill, some motorists have been standing still for two hours and the situation is chaotic.
According to the ANWB, the Netherlands is not yet affected by the farmers’ protests in Belgium, because the bottlenecks are around Brussels and not further north in the country. A spokesperson does advise to keep a close eye on the situation.
There are still actions planned for next week, at least in Antwerp and Ghent. It remains busy in Brussels: farmers are expected there on Thursday because of the EU European summit that day.
Farmers’ protests have been sweeping across Europe in recent weeks. For example, there have already been protests in Germany and farmers in France are going to strike today on highways around Paris.
2024-01-29 06:54:20
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