Holic (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – Farmers from the Czech Republic and Slovakia parked dozens of tractors. They interrupted operations at a border crossing on February 27, 2025, to protest against more inexpensive imports coming from non-EU markets like South America and Ukraine.
A series of protests around Europe have taken place in the past year as farmers say they confront unfair disadvantages over measures and bureaucracy and demand modifications to European Union policies.
Demonstrators included farmers from Austria and Hungary with signs reading ‘Stop grain from Ukraine’ or ‘Green Deal Dead End’, the latter highlighting the European Union’s climate strategy.
Protests largely took aim at an understanding between the European Union and South America’s Mercosur bloc struck in December, along with imports from Ukraine exempt from taxes.
“What affects me… is that I have to fulfil an incredible amount of obligations, paperwork, registration, and the like,”
Czech farmer Petr Chaloupka stated.
“At the same time I am not able to sell the goods at the price at which they are imported here, either from the east or even from South America.”
Demonstrations also occurred at other border areas, including a Polish crossing. Farmers’ associations have called for blocking the Mercosur agreement and reaching a new deal with Ukraine shielding EU agriculture, as well as less bureaucracy from the EU.
Which European countries support blocking the Mercosur agreement?
France, the loudest critic of the deal in the EU, has engraved it as “unacceptable”. Highlighting the obstacles it now confronts, French Trade Minister Sophie Primas vowed to resist its next stages, citing environmental and farming situations.
European farmers have repeatedly voiced their opposition against an EU-Mercosur deal that they state would lead to cheap imports of South American commodities, particularly beef, that do not comply with the EU’s green and food safety regulations. European farm lobby Copa-Coge reaffirmed its resistance to the deal and called for protests in Brussels.
Italy also said there were no requirements for signing off on a deal. Poland said it disagreed the free trade deal in its current form.
