WEB DESK
Convoys with hundreds of angry farmers driving heavy-duty tractors arrived at European Union headquarters in Brussels, bent on getting their complaints about excessive costs, rules and bureaucracy, heard and fixed by EU leaders at a summit today. The leaders of the 27 European Union countries sealed a deal in a summit today to provide Ukraine with a new 50-billion-euro support package for its war-ravaged economy despite weeks of threats from Hungary to veto the move. European Council President Charles Michel announced that agreement was reached in the summit. Hungary lifted its veto.
The farmers mounted their vehicles and entered Brussels with the rumble of engines, firecrackers and blaring horns piercing the early morning slumber in a culmination of weeks of protests around the bloc. Farmers pelted police with firecrackers, eggs, beer bottles and burning bales of hay, and security forces replied with water cannons to douse fires and keep farmers from felling a tree on the steps of the European Parliament.
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Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said, they also need to make sure that farmers get the right price for the high quality products that they provide.
Most of the protesters have been young farmers supporting families, who feel ever-more squeezed by higher energy prices, cheaper foreign competition that does not have to abide by strict EU rules, inflation, and climate change that either withered, flooded or burned crops.
Similar protests have been held across the EU for most of the week. Farmers blocked more traffic arteries across Belgium, France and Italy yesterday as they sought to disrupt trade at major ports and other economic lifelines.