Friday

2nd Jun 2023

Protesters call for EU reform near summit venue

  • Trade unions burn wooden crates near the EU summit in Brussels (Photo: Valentina Pop)

As EU leaders descended upon Brussels for the summit, trade unions and members of the public have staged protests against what they describe as erosion of democracy.

“Democracy is nothing without the control of the budget by the people,” Raf Verbeke, one of the organisers, told this website on Thursday (19 December).

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Become an expert on Europe

Get instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

Verbeke said demonstrators had gathered to air grievances on the EU's fiscal compact on national budgets, secret negotiations on the EU-US free trade pact, loss of jobs, and increased financial insecurity in general.

Organised by the "D19-20" alliance of trade unions and NGOs, the protests took place in five different areas in Brussels, chosen to cause maximum disruption to traffic.

The demonstrators then came together in a street close to the EU summit venue, where people built a large pile of wooden crates and set it on fire.

Verbeke said they can no longer accept “as citizens, as a people” to have no control over ever more powerful, but unelected, EU officials. “The new debate is that politics cannot function without our help, that is the essence of the movement. We are the people,” he shouted.

Verbeke’s statement drew the attention of a small crowd and some reporters.

One Belgian diary farmer, who had brought his tractor to block the street, chimed in.

Antoni van Hyfte has 100 diary cows on his farm in Hainaut, a province in Wallonia. He is worried about what the EU-US free trade pact might mean for his livelihood.

Another demonstrator, Veronique Lorge, who works at a hospital in Brussels and who is a member of the CGSP trade union, fears the pact could further harm the EU social welfare system.

“I don’t want an American social model, otherwise I’d just migrate to the US,” she said.

The protests are set to continue until around midnight on Thursday and to restart near the European Parliament on Friday. Some 2,000 are said to have participated with around 50 arrested.

But for their part, some of the EU summit delegates have little sympathy for the demonstrators' views.

"I don't know why all these farmers are protesting today.There is nothing about agriculture on the summit agenda," one EU source said.

Protestors arrested

Meanwhile, around 14 people were arrested at a separate protest at the European Defence Agency (EDA).

Doused in fake blood, activists from Vredesactie and Agir pour la Paix, two NGOs, locked themselves in the lobby of the building for about an hour and a half before the police forced them out.

The organisers oppose what they see as the militarisation of Europe and undue influence of the arms and security industry on EU policy.

“We oppose, as a peace movement, the military approach to conflict solutions,” said a spokesperson.

He said the protest was staged at EDA because it backs the defence industry.

“The policies are not made at the summit itself, but at different EU associations that are involved in policy making,” he noted.

Similar protests, organised by the two groups, also took place at the European Commission's enterprise and industry department and at the European Parliament.

EU leaders on Thursday are set to discuss joint defence plans to strengthen the “strategic autonomy” of member states.

The idea is to reduce their dependence on US military might by creating a fleet of air-to-air refuelling tankers and surveillance drones.

MEPs to urge block on Hungary taking EU presidency in 2024

"This will be the first time a member state that is under the Article 7 procedure will take over the rotating presidency of the council," French Green MEP Gwendoline Delbos-Corfield, the key lawmaker on Hungary, warned.

European Parliament scales back luxury MEP pension fund

The European Parliament's Bureau, a political body composed of the president and its vice-presidents, decided to slash payouts from the fund by 50 percent, freeze automatic indexations, and increase the pension age from 65 to 67.

WhoisWho? Calls mount to bring back EU directory

NGOs and lobbyists slammed the EU commission for removing contact details of non-managerial staff from its public register, arguing that the institution is now less transparent.

Exclusive

MEP luxury pension held corporate assets in tax havens

While the European Parliament was demanding a clamp down on tax havens, many of its own MEPs were using their monthly office allowances to finance a luxury pension scheme that held corporate assets in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and elsewhere.

Column

What a Spanish novelist can teach us about communality

In a world where cultural clashes and sectarianism seems to be on the increase, Spanish novelist Javier Cercas (b.1962) takes the opposite approach. He cherishes both life in the big city and in the countryside.

Opinion

Poland and Hungary's ugly divorce over Ukraine

What started in 2015 as a 'friends-with-benefits' relationship between Viktor Orbán and Jarosław Kaczyński, for Hungary and Poland, is ending in disgust and enmity — which will not be overcome until both leaders leave.

Latest News

  1. EU data protection chief launches Frontex investigation
  2. Madrid steps up bid to host EU anti-money laundering hub
  3. How EU leaders should deal with Chinese government repression
  4. MEPs pile on pressure for EU to delay Hungary's presidency
  5. IEA: World 'comfortably' on track for renewables target
  6. Europe's TV union wooing Lavrov for splashy interview
  7. ECB: eurozone home prices could see 'disorderly' fall
  8. Adapting to Southern Europe's 'new normal' — from droughts to floods

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. International Sustainable Finance CentreJoin CEE Sustainable Finance Summit, 15 – 19 May 2023, high-level event for finance & business
  2. ICLEISeven actionable measures to make food procurement in Europe more sustainable
  3. World BankWorld Bank Report Highlights Role of Human Development for a Successful Green Transition in Europe
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersNordic summit to step up the fight against food loss and waste
  5. Nordic Council of MinistersThink-tank: Strengthen co-operation around tech giants’ influence in the Nordics
  6. EFBWWEFBWW calls for the EC to stop exploitation in subcontracting chains

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. InformaConnecting Expert Industry-Leaders, Top Suppliers, and Inquiring Buyers all in one space - visit Battery Show Europe.
  2. EFBWWEFBWW and FIEC do not agree to any exemptions to mandatory prior notifications in construction
  3. Nordic Council of MinistersNordic and Baltic ways to prevent gender-based violence
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersCSW67: Economic gender equality now! Nordic ways to close the pension gap
  5. Nordic Council of MinistersCSW67: Pushing back the push-back - Nordic solutions to online gender-based violence
  6. Nordic Council of MinistersCSW67: The Nordics are ready to push for gender equality

Join EUobserver

Support quality EU news

Join us