The farmer revolution against the green agenda landed on the doorstep of the European Union, with thousands of farmers descending on Brussels as leaders of the 27 member states came to the city for a summit on Ukraine, one of whom, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, expressed support for the uprising.
While EU leaders hailed their sending another 50 billion euros to Ukraine on Thursday, they were greeted by thousands of enraged farmers who hurled eggs and set manure fires outside the European Parliament in protest against the stifling regulations of the green agenda and of the globalist free trade agreements undercutting their labour, including the decision by Eurocrats to give Ukraine agriculture tariff-free access to the European market.
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM – FEBRUARY 01 : Farmers blockade of Brussels during the European summit on February 01, 2024 in Brussels, Belgium, 01/02/2024 ( Photo by Philip Reynaers / Photonews via Getty Images)
An estimated 1,300 tractors gathered in the streets surrounding the parliament building as of 10 am on Thursday, according to the Brussels-Capital-Ixelles police. Police said that they are currently searching for culprits who tore down the statue of British-Belgian industrialist John Cockrill outside of the parliament.
Farmer protests also broke out in other regions of Belgium, including blockades surrounding the port of Ghent, where over 400 tractors gathered on Thursday, as well as a complete shutdown of the E40 motorway near Oostduinkerke, De Standaard reports.
While most leaders appeared intent on ignoring the fiery protests which put a literal black cloud of smoke over the EU summit, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán took time to meet with some farmers as he arrived in the city on Wednesday evening.
In a video posted on X, the populist leader said: “It’s a European mistake that the voice of the people is not taken seriously, they are not taken seriously by their leaders, that is the number one problem. We can speak about migration, or war, or Ukraine, whatever, the voice of the people on the streets is not taken seriously by the leaders, it’s a democratic deficit.”
“We have to find new leaders who really represent the people, that’s the only way out,” Orbán added.
Alongside mass migration, the issues facing farmers are looking to be a critical issue in the upcoming European Parliament elections in June. Conservative populist parties throughout Europe have aligned themselves with the farmers’ cause and lay the blame for their difficulties on the globalist agenda from Eurocrats in Brussels and the neo-liberal leaders in Western European capital cities like Berlin and Paris.
The farmer protests, which have occurred in Belgium, France, Germany, Poland, and Romania, have begun to spread, with farmers organisations planning actions this month in Spain. Farmers have also recently risen up in protest in Italy, with hundreds of tractors blocking off traffic near the city of Milan on Wednesday.
MELEGNANO, ITALY – JANUARY 30: Italian farmers gather with their tractors and other agricultural machinery to protest against the European agricultural policies near the A1 highway toll booth in Melegnano, Milan, Italy on January 30, 2024. (Photo by Piero Cruciatti/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Populist firebrand and Deputy Italian Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen — who faces an increasingly dubious re-election this year — was to blame for the anger among farmers.
“The Von der Leyen commission is disastrous in relation to labour and rights,” he said in Brussels per The Guardian, adding that most of the complaints from the farmers “are with the crazy, pseudo-green European policies that regard farmers, fishers, truck drivers…it is clear that this Europe has put ideology ahead of labour.”
Meanwhile, protests continued to rage across France, with farmers attempting to shut down the Rungis wholesale market on the outskirts of Paris on Wednesday. The market, which is the largest in all of Europe, is responsible for supplying food to an estimated 18 million people.
Police officers guard the area as tractors arrive at the Porte de Paray by the Rungis International Market during a protest by French farmers in Rungis, France, on Wednesday, Jan. 31. 2024. France’s Prime Minister Gabriel Attal pledged to continue granting concessions to protesting farmers as he seeks to move beyond a crisis that has dogged his first three weeks as prime minister. Photographer: Nathan Laine/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The actions at the Rungis market saw the first major confrontation with police since the protests began last week, with 91 farmers being arrested in the area on Wednesday, Le Figaro reports.
French law enforcement authorities have previously been hesitant to directly take on the farmers for fear of escalating tensions, however, Paris Police Prefect Laurent Nunez said that in blocking the market a “red line has been crossed” and that police cannot allow “disturbances to public order”.