Protesting EU farmers get €500 million in aid

Protesters say agricultural product prices are too low for them to make a living.

Angry farmers brought central Brussels to a fiery standstill Monday and secured €500 million of assistance from the European Commission to help them cope with plummeting prices for diary and meat, in part the result of a Russian embargo against EU food.

As EU agriculture ministers held an emergency meeting to the backdrop of tractor horns and burning tires, the Commission said the funds were aimed at tackling farmers’ cash-flow difficulties, stabilizing markets and improving the supply chain.

The new measures include targeted aid for all 28 member states, better storage to reduce market supply, more promotional trips to third countries in search of new markets, and the ability for member states to advance aid to farmers more quickly.

“This package will allow for €500 million of EU funds to be used for the benefit of farmers immediately,” European Commission Vice President Jyrki Katainen said in a statement. “This response demonstrates that the Commission takes its responsibility towards farmers very seriously and is prepared to back it up with the appropriate funds.”

Outside the meeting, farmers from member countries including Poland, Ireland, Spain, France, Belgium, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands protested a hodgepodge of grievances, but above all low prices which many said make it impossible to earn a living.

One tractor carried a hangman doll labelled “Hogan,” for the EU’s farm commissioner, Phil Hogan. Amid circling helicopters, acrid smoke and the boom of fireworks, farmers dug into barbecues. Some ate apples while others hurled them at riot police in gas masks, along with eggs and milk cartons. At one point police responded with a few blasts of water canon.

“I also had a spray of democracy,” said MEP Bronis Ropė, smiling among the crowd in a Lithuanian scarf, open-necked shirt and damp suit. “People simply can’t survive under current milk prices, so that’s why people came here, asking the Commission for support and regulation of milk prices.”

One of Ropė’s advisors, Arunas Grazulis, said the Lithuanian milk sector has been hit especially hard by the Russian embargo, depriving it of what had been its biggest export market.

“Lithuanian diary producers are offered the lowest prices — about nine to eleven euro cents per litre,” Grazulis said. “That’s less than half what Germans are offered.”

Listen: Belgian farmers explain why they join the protests (in French):

Hogan’s haters

Benoit, a 20-year-old member of the Belgian Young Farmers Association, traveled by tractor from Soignies, about 40 kilometers south-west of Brussels, to join the protest.

“Now they buy the milk cheaper than what it costs us to produce. So we can’t cover our costs for the cows or anything, so we’re protesting,” he said. “It’s impossible to live. There are already lots of farmers who have stopped — if it continues like this, every day people will stop and go bankrupt.”

Martina Broadback from the German Federal Dairy Farmers Association was attending her fifth protest. Her family has scaled up its operation from 43 cows in 1983 to 200 now but still can’t earn a living, she said.

“In Germany they say the market will regulate everything but that doesn’t work,” she said. “In the end there will be a few very big farms with 1,000 or 2,000 cows, and all the others will go.”

Watch: an impression of the protests in Brussels:
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Cynthia Kroet and Ginger Hervey contributed to this story.