A tractor blockade has seriously disrupted operations at the Belgian port of Antwerp, Europe’s second largest, authorities said, as angry farmers continued their protests in half a dozen European countries.
“No freight can be delivered or picked up, as trucks are halted, while employees are only being allowed in after a long wait,” said Stephan Vanfraechem, the director of the association of port operators Alfaport.
Vanfraechem told Reuters the protest was costing his members millions of euros “for a conflict they play no part in”. Access roads and tunnels leading to the port were blocked by an estimated 500 tractors from early morning, authorities said.
The protest was the latest in a series of recent actions by farmers across the bloc that have left only four EU member states untouched, as farmers demand higher product prices, looser environmental rules and better protection against cheap imports.
Belgium’s main farmers’ union criticised “a lack of concrete results” from talks with the government, saying working groups aimed at finding solutions had turned out to be “talking shops that come up only with vague, long-term promises”.
In Spain, a protest against against the impact on agriculture of EU green laws and unfair competition from cheap food imported from outside the bloc – much of it produced under less strict regulations than in Europe – entered its eighth day.
Tractors blocked motorways near Seville and Granada in Andalucia, and further north in Catalonia prevented access to Mercabarna, the main wholesale food market in Barcelona, the port of Tarragona, and the main border crossing with France.
Spanish farmers are also demanding more support from the government in the face of a severe drought and soaring production costs. The whole country has officially been in drought since January 2022, amid record-high temperatures.
Polish farmers also continued their protests, dumping grain at border crossing points with Ukraine. The EU suspended quotas and duties on Ukrainian agricultural products after Russia’s invasion, depressing prices in neighbouring countries.
Moldovan farmers also blocked a key border crossing with Romania with their tractors on Tuesday, demanding more state subsidies to counter recent losses. Farmers’ associations say thousands of small and medium-size farms are at risk of collapse.
Farmers staged a protest in Sofia calling for the resignation of Bulgaria’s agriculture minister, Kiril Vatev, arguing a recent agreement with the government to provide emergency financial help to livestock and arable farmers was inadequate.
Greece’s prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, met farmers’ representatives on Tuesday and pledged more help, particularly with electricity prices. “I believe we can find common ground, taking into account your justified concerns,” Mitsotakis said.
In France, however, Arnaud Rousseau, the head of the country’s biggest farming union FNSEA, said on Tuesday that the protests that hit the sector last month and blocked motorways across the country could resume if the government did not do more.
France’s major farming unions suspended their protests on 1 February after government concessions including scrapping a planned diesel tax increase, support worth €600m, and a pledge to stop imposing stricter rules than EU laws demand.
“We’ve said it since the beginning,” Rousseau said ahead of a planned meeting on Tuesday with the prime minister, Gabriel Attal. “We expect real changes, not announcements. French farmers have not disarmed: we are ready to go again.”
The government is negotiating with farmers over securing higher product prices and easing red tape, but Rousseau said progress “is not being made at the right pace” in the run-up to the opening of the annual Paris agricultural show in 10 days’ time.
