Europe’s farming sector is facing a big crisis and must “profoundly” change its rules, Emmanuel Macron has said after a European Union leaders’ summit in Brussels was overshadowed by protesting farmers hurling eggs, dumping manure and lighting fires.
Speaking as hundreds of farmers from Belgium, the Netherlands and elsewhere blocked streets around the European parliament with tractors, the French president said there should be a joint EU mechanism to guarantee fair prices paid to farmers by food giants and supermarkets. He said regulations should be simplified, after weeks of farmer protests across Europe have blockaded motorways.
Although agriculture had not been on the agenda of the leaders’ summit, the proximity and intensity of the spreading farmers’ protests made it impossible for politicians in Brussels to ignore.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Europe’s farming sector is facing a big crisis and must “profoundly” change its rules, Emmanuel Macron has said after a European Union leaders’ summit in Brussels was overshadowed by protesting farmers hurling eggs, dumping manure and lighting fires.
Praising farmers’ “remarkable resilience”, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said she was working closely with EU member states “to address the immediate challenges”.
After weeks in which farmers from Germany, France, Belgium, Italy and Greece protested, hundreds descended on Brussels on Thursday to put more pressure on European leaders to do more to help them with taxes, rising costs and environmental rules.
Palls of black smoke from a pyre of rubber tyres filled the air and at one point police were forced to hose down burning straw and manure that had been unceremoniously dumped in front of the parliament building.
But the union chief said new protests could be held if “initial results” from the promises were not seen by the time France’s main agriculture trade fair opened at the end of this month.
There are too many regulations, the salaries are not high enough and now we are facing imports because of the Mercosur deal where farmers don’t even have to have the same standards as us,” said Emile Herbiet, a Belgian blue cattle-breeder who had come to Brussels to protest on Thursday.
The original article contains 851 words, the summary contains 227 words. Saved 73%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Thanks, now I hate farmers even more.
Why?
Name another voting bloc with fewer principles and more outsized influence.
CEOs
Who do you think gets vast majority of agricultural subsidies?
Who else but farmers would need them?
The big companies that own most of the land
I don’t know if I would call them a voting bloc per se, but otherwise, yeah, that would count.
Why vote when yo can just buy politicians directly
You hate European farmers or you hate farmers in your own country?
Yes.
They already get so much financial support from governments, and they pollute so much. Time for reforms.
