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It's not just in Germany that farmers are taking to the streets.
Anger is also threatening to soon boil over in France, Poland, the Netherlands and Lithuania.
Farmers' protests are spreading across Europe, with workers from countries such as France and Poland cutting off transport routes because of rising costs and burdensome regulations.
The regions around the southern French cities of Bordeaux and Lyon are seeing the worst disruption, with tractors and agricultural vehicles blocking major highways.
Arnaud Rousseau, leader of the farmers' union FNSEA, said on Wednesday (January 24) that further actions were planned in most regions in the coming days.
Protesters' demands range from more financial support to offset the costs of EU environmental regulations to less regulation of everyday work.
They also have to contend with the impact of inflation on energy and fuel prices, as well as competition from cheaper imports.
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“Once the fuse is lit, farmers can see it through to the end - there is no going back,” Rousseau said on France 2 television.
Farmers protest in Poland over food imports from Ukraine
In Poland, farmers plan to block roads in up to 250 locations to protest against EU plans to curb carbon dioxide emissions and what organizers describe as uncontrolled food imports from neighboring Ukraine.
Relations between Warsaw and Kiev have deteriorated over the past year after the previous Polish government restricted grain imports from Ukraine in response to farmers' protests just months before the Oct. 15 parliamentary election.
French farmers' protests near the German border near Lauterbourg (symbolic image).
© Ulrich Roth/Imago
Around 200 farmers gathered in central Brussels on Wednesday and said
they could no longer cope with EU regulations and falling yields
, according to newspaper Le Soir .
More than 1,000 farmers with tractors also began a protest in central Vilnius, Lithuania, vowing to continue the demonstration until Friday.
Protests in France: Macron wants to offer solutions for farmers
The protests follow similar tensions in Germany and the Netherlands over cutting subsidies and passing European environmental laws.
Far-right parties have seized on these themes and are using them to inform their messaging ahead of the European Parliament elections in June.
France's new Prime Minister Gabriel Attal and Agriculture Minister Marc Fesneau met with Rousseau and other farmers' representatives on Monday evening to discuss their concerns.
President Emmanuel Macron said in a post on X on Tuesday that he had asked them to be “fully mobilized to offer concrete solutions.”
Government spokeswoman Prisca Thevenot said on Wednesday that a package of measures would be announced in the coming days and that Attal would meet with local farmers shortly.
For Rousseau, this cannot happen quickly enough.
He said the FNSEA would present a list of around 40 specific demands later in the day.
“People are proud of where they live and what they produce, and that’s what makes them angry,” he said.
“Today our determination is total and we must achieve results.”
By William Horobin and Milda Seputyte
With support from Piotr Skolimowski, Samy Adghirni and John Follain.
We are currently testing machine translations. This article was automatically translated from English into German.
This article was first published in English on January 24, 2024 at the “Washingtonpost.com” - as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.