Angry farmers clog roads with 1,000 tractors around EU summit in Brussels • FRANCE 24 English

Columns of tractors lined up in the streets of Brussels early on Thursday to press a summit of European Union leaders to do more to help farmers with taxes, rising costs and cheap imports. FRANCE 24’s Dave Keating and Alix Le Bourdon report.
#report #farmers #EU

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9 comments

  1. Unlike many wealthy lobbists, the farmers don't have big money to make a fair presentation of their case. Nobody investigate what's happening to them, nobody have a proper balanced study of the sustainability of government policies. The farmers are making a last cry for survival, but all we see is the media scratching the surface of a protest. And their survival is a matter of national survival.

  2. The elites in Brussels should start listening to the people that are actually doing something productive for society, like the farmers or the truckers.

  6. Wow! In America, this would be called an insurrection and every one of these farmers would be in federal court and sent to prison for a long time. Hmmmmm……….

  7. Over subsidised state supported over protected EU farmers ..consumers pay more….subsidies would be better spent on education for children

  9. The European Union was formed in November 1993 with the Maastricht Treaty. The strength of the EU was it’s protectionist anti globalisation trade barriers that made it more economic to buy from within the group. The aim of the EU was to protect member nation jobs, farming and industry, by adding tariffs to imported products.

    But within six months the World Trade Organisation was established by 123 nations at a meeting in Marrakesh. This agreement was exactly the opposite to the protectionist anti globalisation trade barriers created by the EU. At its core was trade liberalisation, include binding the negotiated tariff reductions for an extended period.

    This WTO agreement has created a nightmare for the EU. In theory as member nations they should abide by WTO guidelines. They ignored this for around a decade, and concentrated upon side issues like free movement within the block.

    They also began a back door campaign to thwart the WTO by implementing EU standards that could be used as non tariff barriers to trade.

    But by the early 2000s they were under increasing pressure to open up markets. In response to this they began negotiating Free Trade Agreements, that contained strict protectionist limitations and were FTA in name only. The agreement with Japan was actually called a Economic Partnership Agreement or EPA. It specifically limited Japanese car imports, making it a mockery, and was not an FTA.

    In recent times even the FTA negotiations have collapsed. The Australia FTA fell apart, and the Mercosur FTA is falling apart when the EU wanted severe limitations on agricultural products. Hence the recent French, German, Belgian and Dutch farmer protests.

    The EU is now an anachronism in a free trade world. It is desperately trying to find a justification for its existence, when in fact it’s relevance ended with the signing of the WTO.

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