Today farmers are taking their protests to the European District of Brussels, the home of many European institutions. This is where the European Commission, the EU’s executive, is looking at its multi-year budget for 2028-2034. Farmers' organisations fear that agricultural budgets will be severely cut. Belgian farmers union ABS expects several hundred demonstrators in Brussels, but they will be leaving their tractors at home this time.
The European Commission is considering the 2028-2034 multiyear budget in Brussels today. With more money to go to defence, farmers fear they will be left with less cash in the future.
ABS president Bruno Vincent expects several hundred farmers to make their voices heard in Brussels. He hopes the protest can be a ‘wake-up call’ for politicians to take farmers' grievances into account.
“We want to make them aware that a few points in the multiyear budget are not acceptable to farmers,” Vincent told VRT Radio. "There is talk of cutting 20 per cent off that budget. This is unacceptable to us. People say agriculture is a strategic sector, but we don't see that in their actions."
Against a national fund
The European Commission's proposal to bring the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund and the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development together into one single fund, which would be managed at national level, is not being welcomed. “To ensure cohesion, we think the EU should decide what happens to the agricultural budget, not the member states.”
The European farmers' organisation Copa-Cogeca has called for ‘a strong commitment to a common agricultural policy with a protected budget, adjusted for inflation, and protected against any form of renationalisation’.
No tractors this time
According to the Walloon Association of Young Farmers (FJA), some farmers may be coming to Brussels with their tractors, but they do not expect a parade of vehicles like last winter. In late 2024, more than a thousand tractors drove through the streets of Brussels.
The Belgian Farmers' Union, which is not co-organising today's action, staged a protest in the European District in May. Back then, a house of cards was built as a symbol of the European Union's agricultural policy, which farmers say threatens to collapse like a house of cards if sufficient financial means are not provided.
Today, farmers will walk from the European Parliament to the seat of the European Commission on the Schumanplein. There, they intend to place a symbolic pair of boots.