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AFP
Brussels
Several thousand people demonstrated against austerity and a massive EU-US free trade deal in central Brussels Friday, burning an effigy of German Chancellor Angela Merkel near the European Commission headquarters.
The protest, bringing together farmers on their tractors, trade unionists and environmentalists, was meant to coincide with the second day of a European Union leaders summit but that wrapped up late on Thursday instead.
On a normally busy road junction next to the European Commission’s imposing headquarters building, the demonstrators burned an effigy of Merkel watched over by a heavy police contingent, AFP reported.
Merkel is seen as the main driver behind austerity policies in EU countries that cut social welfare programmes in a bid to reduce government debt.
Police cordoned off the whole EU quarter in the Schuman district of Brussels, causing early morning chaos in one of the city’s busiest areas.
“Merry Christmas and Happy Austerity” read one banner the protesters put up outside the new European Council building.
Police put the number of demonstrators at around 2,500 but the protesters themselves said they numbered around 3,500, including farmers bringing in about 30 tractors before they set off across the city.
“We’re against austerity, we’re against TTIP,” Rudy Janssens, a senior official with the Belgian socialist union CGSP, told AFP.
Washington and Brussels aim to seal their Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) by end-2015, creating what would be the world’s largest free trade deal.
EU leaders reaffirmed that target at the summit.
TTIP is presented as a major economic boost but many in Europe fear it will undermine standards on food and consumer safeguards, while giving US businesses too much leeway to challenge EU governments to the disadvantage of their citizens.
Janssens said his union is fighting a trade deal that “will harm the social system in Belgium and Europe”, one that has taken generations to build and includes government-funded medical care.
“When we receive medical care, we’re a patient, not a customer,” he said, charging that TTIP will turn people into “merchandise”.
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