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full screen Angry farmers lit bonfires and toppled statues in front of the European Parliament in Brussels on Thursday. Stock photo. Photo: Thomas Padilla/AP/TT
While central Brussels is being cleaned up after Thursday’s tractor invasion, several roads in Belgium remain blocked by angry farmers.
On Friday morning, traffic was basically at a standstill on three of the major highways between the Netherlands and Belgium, reports the newspaper Le Soir. The Volvo factory in Ghent also had to slow down as necessary deliveries got stuck in the farmers’ blockade of the port in Zeebrygge.
– The signal has arrived. We have understood that both at the federal level and at the EU level. Now I think it is time to lift the blockades, pleads Prime Minister Alexander De Croo on the radio channel VRT.
The dissatisfaction concerns, among other things, free trade agreements with countries outside the EU and environmental regulations that are considered to disadvantage agriculture in comparison to industry. The fact that one of Belgium’s largest food chains has chosen to buy up agricultural land and then hire staff to look after it has also raised upset feelings among farmers.