Farmers protest in Brussels, but the EU is unable to answer them

Caos is in Brussels today. Farmers from all over Europe, especially from the East, gathered in the city that is home to the European institutions. About 1,000 vehicles concentrated, managing to overcome police blockades and reach the city center. Protesters also clashed with police while reaching Rue de la Loi, the center of European power.

After protesting in front of the European institutions, especially the Commission, as the European Parliament is meeting at its other location in Strasbourg today, the tractors moved toward Zaventem Airport, blocking it.

The occasion of this protest was supposed to be the meeting of the agriculture ministers of the European Union countries, but this event was practically swamped by the protest. The police were almost impotent in front of the heavy trucks and manure spreaders brought by the farmers.

The serious problem is that, so far, neither the Commission nor the nation-states have been able to give a serious answer to the farmers’ problems related to the huge bureaucratic burden and loss of income. The two problems are linked and stem from the total detachment of the Commission and the Brussels bureaucracy from the real world of families, the economy, and production.

The protests will surely go on until the elections because the solution to farmers’ problems could only come from the cancellation of the European policies of the last ten years.