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Main farming groups shun Brussels protest against EU green policies

Farmers drove numerous tractors into Brussels on Tuesday to protest against the European Union's ecological policies, however the action was avoided by mainstream farming groups who stated it did not show their members' concerns.

A few days before the European Parliament election on June 6-9, farmers from the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland and Germany taken a trip to Brussels to protest against EU green policies that organisers said undermine the competitiveness of European farmers.

We originated from Poland, due to the fact that we know that the source of our issue remains in Brussels. Due to the fact that we wish to change, deeply modification, the Green Deal, crop farmer Damian Murawiec informed at the protest in Laeken, in northern Brussels.

It is the current in a months-long wave of farmers' protests across Europe, where agricultural workers have actually knocked low food rates, extreme regulation and free-trade deals they say leave them having a hard time to compete with cheap imports.

The demonstration was organised by Dutch lobby group Farmers Defence Force and supported by right-wing and reactionary groups. With police counting around 500 tractors, it was smaller than previous farmers' demonstrations kept in Brussels this year.

We want Europe to put the Green Offer away since it's not realistic, said Bart Dickens, President of Farmers Defence Force's Belgian branch.

Farmers Defence Force - whose secretary Sieta van Keimpema has explained concerns over climate change as hysterical - stated politicians from Belgian reactionary celebration Vlaams Belang and the conservative European Conservatives and Reformists group would address the protest in the afternoon.

Europe's most significant farming lobby Copa Cogeca, and farming association La Via Campesina, each told their members would not participate.

We decline this effort by little groups that have no concrete proposals to deal with farmers' problems to pirate farmer concerns to press their own party interests, a spokesperson for Via Campesina said.

Meanwhile in Poland farmers blocked one border crossing with Ukraine, in what cops stated was a program of uniformity with demonstrations in Brussels.

This demonstration will last three days ... trucks travelling from Ukraine are obstructed and 12 trucks are allowed to leave Poland between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., stated authorities spokesperson Malgorzata Pawlowska.

All other border crossings with Ukraine were running typically.

On Thursday two of the largest unions representing farmers in Poland, Uniformity and OPZZ, said that they had no knowledge of the protests.

(source: Reuters)