Farmers, truckers and taxi drivers, protesting record fuel prices, converged on downtown Brussels today on the eve of a European Union summit to demand help for their fuel-reliant industries.
Dozens of tractors poured into the Belgian capital along the Avenue de Tervueren for the demonstration aimed at both the EU, which has its headquarters in Brussels, and the national government.
Hundreds of tractors were parked in central Brussels during the demonstration
“Brussels is the epicenter of the crisis,'' the newspaper
Le Soir
said, adding that up to 50 per cent of the city's public transport may be affected by the protest.
The protesters are demanding assistance from EU leaders who begin a summit tomorrow in Brussels that's already overshadowed by the rejection by Ireland last week of the Lisbon Treaty.
Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency, said energy prices would be on the two-day summit's agenda.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has called for a cap or a reduction on oil sales tax. Such a move has been rejected by other EU countries including Germany, Spain and the Netherlands which rely on energy taxes for a significant proportion of state revenue.
French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said her country will continue pushing for oil tax cuts when France takes over the EU presidency on July 1st.
The European Commission yesterday outlined an emergency package of proposals to aid the bloc's fishermen who are also being hit by high fuel costs. These include
raising the limit in EU aid to €100,000 per fishing vessel for three years, up from the current rate of €30,000 per three years for each fishing company.
Oil prices have doubled in the past year, eroding household budgets and pushing up companies' production costs.
Bloomberg