Fishermen demonstrating against the soaring price of fuel clashed with police in Brussels today.
Fishermen and police clash in Brussels
Hundreds of fishermen, mostly from France and Italy, occupied the city centre and, after a morning stand-off, a smaller group set off flares against police, who promptly charged them.
A litter bin was set on fire, emitting thick black smoke, and glass was strewn across the street. A helicopter circled overhead.
Police in riot gear and gas masks had lined up behind a barbed wire barricade preventing the protesters and the public from reaching the European Commission's headquarters. Nearby metro stations were closed.
French fishermen say they will go bust unless they obtain discounted diesel at 40 cents per litre as opposed to 80 cents on the market. The price of marine diesel has surged by 30 per cent in the past four months.
They also want the European Commission to intervene by raising the amount of financial aid that a government may grant to its fisheries sector without attracting the scrutiny of EU internal market regulators.
A handful of demonstrators met the chief political adviser to EU Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg, who was not himself in Brussels, and explained their grievances.
EU leaders will discuss the impact of high oil prices on Europe's fisheries sector at a summit in mid-June, he said. The sector also suffered from overcapacity and badly needed to restructure, he said, to the jeers of the fishermen.
The EU has strict rules about aid doled out by its member states to particular industries and companies that are designed to ensure governments grant assistance that does not give one sector in a particular country an unfair trade advantage.
In France, truckers, taxi drivers and farmers staged numerous go-slows on major highways to pressure the government over fuel costs, emulating a protest yesterday which paralysed traffic around Paris's main business district.
Several dozen slow-moving lorries snarled traffic leading to Paris's Roissy airport, causing almost eight kilmometres of tailbacks. A similar protest by more than a hundred truckers brought chaos to the ring road around the southern city of Toulouse.
A number of ports, including Dieppe on the north coast, remained blocked by fishermen seeking more government aid.
The French government is due to hold talks with the various parties on June 10th.