Hundreds of farmers staged protests in the Netherlands on Monday evening, February 5, blocking highways and lighting fires, police and Dutch media reported.
“Fires have been lit, fireworks have been set off and agricultural vehicles are driving on the highway
,” police in the Gelderland region (center) described on X, affirming that
“measures have been taken”
.
Law enforcement did not indicate whether any arrests had been made.
Dutch and Belgian farmers joined on Thursday the wave of demonstrations initiated by their French colleagues in January, which has since spread to Germany, Poland, Romania, Greece and Italy.
European policy too complex, incomes too low, inflation, foreign competition, accumulation of standards, soaring fuel prices: the demands of European farmers are essentially identical in all countries.
To try to extinguish the anger, the European Commission on Thursday promised measures to defend the
“legitimate interests”
of farmers in the European Union, in particular by reducing the
“administrative burden”
of the criticized common agricultural policy (CAP).