EU heads of state met on Thursday in Brussels for what the European Commission had hoped would be a rubber stamping of the EU-Mercosur free trade deal.
Their discussions ended up mired by issues relating to Ukraine and delays to the Mercosur vote, sought by both France and Italy, were heeded.
However, talk on the streets lined by tractors and protesters from across the EU member states only strayed to Mercosur and future of CAP. The official police count put attendance at the anti-Mercosur, anti-CAP proposal protest at 1,000 tractors and 7,300 protesters, while organiser Copa-Cogeca claimed it had hit 10,000.
Farmers - the entire IFA national council, ICSA and ICOS included - gathered from early morning with banners adorned with ‘Von der Leyen’s plan starves Europe’ and ‘Don’t turn off food safety’. The main protest set off on its way after speeches from leaders denouncing a Commission looking to cut CAP funding while simultaneously pushing to open up the EU to cheaper South American products.
As the main group of protesters set off in an orderly way, a different scene was unfolding in Place du Luxembourg, the bar-lined square that sits in front of Brussels’ European Parliament complex.
The demonstration there, made up of mostly French, Belgian and Dutch farmers who were not part of the main protest, was marred by clashes between protesters and police.
The scene from Place du Luxembourg on Thursday.
Thick smoke engulfed the square, bollards and railings were ripped out of the ground for throwing at windows and what few trees had stood in the grassy area of the square were knocked with a chainsaw to add fuel to the fires.
Windows were broken in the front of Parliament’s visitors centre and tear gas was deployed in a bid to disperse protesters, who had hurled glass bottles, cobblestones, sugar beet and potatoes at the police throughout the morning.
Concerns
The Federation of Swedish Farmers’ president Palle Burgsdrom said that farmers in Sweden are “facing the same problems as every other member state”.
“It is not only about the CAP proposals and the funding of the CAP that will hit the agriculture sector very hard, it is the combination of this with low-price South American products” the dairy farmer told the Irish Farmers Journal.
The scene from Place du Luxembourg on Thursday.
Farmer Thys Vermeulen had a shorter trip to the protest than many, having just travelled in convoy with 50 other tractor drivers from his dairy farm in east Flanders, Belgium.
“The first reason I am here is CAP – they want to take 24% of our funding away. Mercosur would let cheap meat and sugar into the EU. These together would crush us,” Vermeulen said.
Young Italian tillage farmer Anna Maria Mantovani said that she is “very afraid” of Mercosur products’ impact on markets and that proposals to cut CAP funding from 2028 also pose a threat to generational renewal.
“What are we asking for? More funds, access to land, access to credit. But if they start cutting CAP funds, how are they going to do installation aid? How are they going to fund generational renewal,” she told the Irish Farmers Journal.
Olive and fruit farmer Marco Pignocci warned that the non-equivalence of standards could hit far more sectors than just beef, as he saw the European Commission’s push for Mercosur as proof that Brussels “has not defended us, they have not listened to us”.
French tillage farmer Alexandre Pele fears that cane sugar from Brazil could wipe out France’s sugar beet industry if Mercosur goes ahead.
EU heads of state met on Thursday in Brussels for what the European Commission had hoped would be a rubber stamping of the EU-Mercosur free trade deal.
Their discussions ended up mired by issues relating to Ukraine and delays to the Mercosur vote, sought by both France and Italy, were heeded.
However, talk on the streets lined by tractors and protesters from across the EU member states only strayed to Mercosur and future of CAP. The official police count put attendance at the anti-Mercosur, anti-CAP proposal protest at 1,000 tractors and 7,300 protesters, while organiser Copa-Cogeca claimed it had hit 10,000.
Farmers - the entire IFA national council, ICSA and ICOS included - gathered from early morning with banners adorned with ‘Von der Leyen’s plan starves Europe’ and ‘Don’t turn off food safety’. The main protest set off on its way after speeches from leaders denouncing a Commission looking to cut CAP funding while simultaneously pushing to open up the EU to cheaper South American products.
As the main group of protesters set off in an orderly way, a different scene was unfolding in Place du Luxembourg, the bar-lined square that sits in front of Brussels’ European Parliament complex.
The demonstration there, made up of mostly French, Belgian and Dutch farmers who were not part of the main protest, was marred by clashes between protesters and police.
The scene from Place du Luxembourg on Thursday.
Thick smoke engulfed the square, bollards and railings were ripped out of the ground for throwing at windows and what few trees had stood in the grassy area of the square were knocked with a chainsaw to add fuel to the fires.
Windows were broken in the front of Parliament’s visitors centre and tear gas was deployed in a bid to disperse protesters, who had hurled glass bottles, cobblestones, sugar beet and potatoes at the police throughout the morning.
Concerns
The Federation of Swedish Farmers’ president Palle Burgsdrom said that farmers in Sweden are “facing the same problems as every other member state”.
“It is not only about the CAP proposals and the funding of the CAP that will hit the agriculture sector very hard, it is the combination of this with low-price South American products” the dairy farmer told the Irish Farmers Journal.
The scene from Place du Luxembourg on Thursday.
Farmer Thys Vermeulen had a shorter trip to the protest than many, having just travelled in convoy with 50 other tractor drivers from his dairy farm in east Flanders, Belgium.
“The first reason I am here is CAP – they want to take 24% of our funding away. Mercosur would let cheap meat and sugar into the EU. These together would crush us,” Vermeulen said.
Young Italian tillage farmer Anna Maria Mantovani said that she is “very afraid” of Mercosur products’ impact on markets and that proposals to cut CAP funding from 2028 also pose a threat to generational renewal.
“What are we asking for? More funds, access to land, access to credit. But if they start cutting CAP funds, how are they going to do installation aid? How are they going to fund generational renewal,” she told the Irish Farmers Journal.
Olive and fruit farmer Marco Pignocci warned that the non-equivalence of standards could hit far more sectors than just beef, as he saw the European Commission’s push for Mercosur as proof that Brussels “has not defended us, they have not listened to us”.
French tillage farmer Alexandre Pele fears that cane sugar from Brazil could wipe out France’s sugar beet industry if Mercosur goes ahead.
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