Belgian farmers have started their week of protests blocking traffic on several highways in the country with slow tractor speeds and road closures. This is the prelude to some mobilizations announced to protest against the low prices and the environmental regulations.

Farmers in the French-speaking region of Wallonia organized the largest protests on Sunday, with dozens of tractors participating in several slow marches that converged on the outskirts of the city of Namur to cut off traffic in the Daussoulx exchangera strategic node of the Belgian road network.

It is a junction point that connects two of the country’s main highways: the E411, which connects Brussels with Luxembourg from north to south, and the E42, which connects Belgium with Germany and France, crossing the entire country from east to south. west.

According to the Belgian media, farmers intend to cut for at least 24 hours traffic of vehicles at the Daussoulx interchange.

The farmers also plan to carry out another road block on Monday afternoon, closer to Brussels, in the vicinity of the city of Halle, and spend the entire night there sleeping in tractors and trucks.

The bulk of the protests this Sunday in Belgium were called by the Federation of Young Farmers, with the support of the Walloon Federation of Farmers and the United Federation of Breeders and Farmers Groups, which also brings together livestock breeders.

All of them denounce the low prices paid by wholesalers for their productions, administrative overhead that they face and environmental standards that they must comply with, as well as the risks that, according to them, free trade agreements such as the one that the European Union (EU) is now negotiating with the Latin American countries belonging to Mercosur entail.

They follow in the footsteps of the French

They thus join the protests of the french farmerswho have been blocking the traffic of trucks transporting food for more than a week and threatening to leave the capital incommunicado.

There, the Government of Emmanuel Macron supports the arguments of the farmers who demonstrate and blame the situation on the “unfair competition” from European Union partners such as Spain and Italy. “We are going to continue moving forward to fight against unfair competition. Our farmers are subject to (phytosanitary) rules that are not imposed on other countries,” said French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal.