(4 Jun 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Brussels – 4 June 2024
1. Various of tractors arriving at a park north of Brussels
2. SOUNDBITE (Dutch) Gert Jan Oudijk, Dutch dairy farmer:
“They have added so much on the plate of the farmers that the farmers may simply disappear. The environment legislations are so extreme that they are becoming unbearable.”
3. Mid of tractors
4. Farmers with banners, reading (English) "Stop the green communism"
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Polish Farmer, Damian Murawiec:
“The main source of our problems are in Brussels, because the politicians in the European parliament are making very much bad things that come to our farms.”
6. Various of tractor delegation allowed to drive towards the European Parliament
7. Various of tractors in Brussels downtown streets
8. Various of tractors arriving in front of European Parliament building
9. Various of men with flares
10. Wide of European Parliament building with canister producing blue smoke
STORYLINE:
Around 500 tractors and over a thousand farmers held a demonstration in a park north of Brussels just days before European Parliament elections, calling on the European Union to stop putting pressure on them with climate-friendly measures.
A Dutch dairy farmer who had come to join the protest in Brussels said the measures had become "unbearable".
"They have added so much on the plate of the farmers that the farmers may simply disappear,” said Gert Jan Oudijk.
Farmers from Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, France and Poland were present, but the main traditional farmers trade unions did not join the protest, because it was organized by far-right movements.
The protesting farmers are hoping they can sweep the progressive Green Deal climate pact off the table and give farmers the leeway they had for so long in deciding how to till the land.
The discontent centers on limiting use of manure and pesticides to forcing parts of farmland to be kept pristine nature zones for the benefit of birds and bees — and eventually the population at large.
A delegation of around 20 tractors was allowed to drive in downtown Brussels and make a symbolic gesture in front of the European Parliament.
Unlike previous similar demonstrations in Brussels since the start of the year, no clashes occurred.
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