RIOT police armed with shields and batons charged hundreds of protesting fishermen outside the European Union headquarters in Brussels yesterday after a demonstration over high fuel prices turned violent.
The largely French and Italian group of protesters threw flares, firecrackers and stones at police beyond razor-wire barricades. They also fired flare guns at the EU headquarters building.
As they retreated along the main boulevard through Brusse
ls' European Union district, protesters broke into EU buildings, smashing windows and dragging out flags and other items to burn in the street.
"We are here because every time we ask our own government ... they tell us it's Brussels' fault. And so we have come to Brussels," Alain Rico, a French fisherman , said.
At least two cars were attacked at a road junction and one was overturned.
Hooded protesters pulled up paving stones, apparently to use as weapons against the police, who were backed by water cannon, dogs and two helicopters.
Police pushed the protesters away from the EU's landmark Berlaymont headquarters with water cannon mounted on lorries and baton charges by about 200 officers. It was not immediately clear whether any arrests were made.
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.
"The Commission is acutely aware that this is a crisis for the sector that is real, immediate and requires action," Patrick Tabone said at the entrance to the Commission's headquarters.
"The big problem is that the cause of it, which is high oil prices, is something that we are all having to live with ... we are all trying to understand it, to adjust to it and to find the proper EU fisheries."
Fishermen, lorry drivers and farmers across Europe have protested in recent weeks to demand government aid to help compensate for high fuel costs, which they say are threatening their livelihoods.
The fishermen want the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, to raise the amount of financial aid that a government may grant to its fisheries sector without attracting the EU internal market regulators.
EU leaders will discuss the impact of high oil prices on Europe's fisheries sector at a summit in mid-June, Mr Tabone said. Mr Tabone, to jeers, recommended the fishermen accept calls for a mass overhaul of Europe's fisheries sector, including cutting back the size of fleets to prevent overfishing and to cut costs.
"What we need to ensure is that the responses we come up with are a real help to the sector, not only in the short term, but in the long term," Mr Tabone told the fishermen.
"It's a problem that is shared by all European fishermen so we came here united to ask Brussels to help us," said Umberto Cogisnani, an Italian fisherman.
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 yesterday, lorry drivers and taxi drivers staged so-called "snail" protests in which they drove slowly to hold up traffic to express their anger at petrol and diesel prices.
Farmers left oil cans and other petroleum products in front of regional government offices in several cities in southern France. Protesters blocked deliveries to and from an oil depot in Cusset in eastern France, and blocked a river in Lyons.
The chief executive of France's oil giant Total told French deputies in Paris that oil prices were expected to stay high for a long time and said consumers should get used to it.
Protests on costs sweep the continentMANY largely peaceful protests over fuel prices have already been held across Europe:
• Scores of British fishermen, supported by their French and Belgian colleagues, protested in London on Tuesday over high diesel prices they say are crippling their businesses.
• More than 100 lorry drivers converged on the Bulgarian capital of Sofia last Friday to renew demands for excise duty rebates and government help over high fuel prices.
• French fishermen say they will go bust unless they obtain discounted diesel at 40 cents per litre – half the market price. The cost of marine diesel has surged by 30 per cent in the past four months.
• Hundreds of French farmers blocked the largest oil depot in Lyons on Tuesday and truckers continued to blockade an oil refinery near Marseilles.
Dutch truckers displayed illuminated road signs last week urging motorists to honk their horns in solidarity.
• Portugal's 7,000 fishing boats remained in port last Friday and owners threatened to continue the protest until the government helped with petrol costs.
• Spanish fishermen threatened to block harbours unless the government cracked down on foreign imports and subsidised marine fuel.
The full article contains 819 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
