As to the climate cultists, if they were planning on going anywhere near Brussels today, it might be a better idea to stay put. The figurative sacrificial chickens for your cult haven’t come home to roost on the streets surrounding the European Parliament building – the literal ones have.

European farmers began descending on the city en masse in the pre-dawn dark this morning to protest the EU’s over-regulation and crippling economic burdens. All measures determined to drive them to extinction in the name of NetZero and saving the Earth…for somebody.

On the Paris-Brussels motorway, angry farmers wrote in huge yellow letters visible from afar: “Ursula, we are here!“

It was chalked on the road with equal parts defiance and desperation, warning European Commission Ursula von der Leyen not to ignore farmers’ pleas for better prices and less bureaucracy.

The European Union is holding a summit on Thursday – and von der Leyen, or any other EU leader in attendance, will be looking out their windows at the crowd of farmers protesting in the street.

Hundreds of tractors will gather in Luxembourg Square in the Belgian capital on Thursday to call on European leaders to put an end to free trade agreements between the European Union and third countries.

Hundreds of European farmers block access to EU parliament in Brussels. The time has come. pic.twitter.com/eWQRR34kYF

— RadioGenoa (@RadioGenoa) February 1, 2024

They made a whale of a racket coming in early…

Des centaines de tracteurs entrent dans #Bruxelles et se dirigent vers le Parlement Européen à l'occasion de la tenue d'un sommet des dirigeants de l'UE. #AgriculteursEnColeres pic.twitter.com/TGK3tUTMCT

— Anonyme Citoyen (@AnonymeCitoyen) February 1, 2024

…and immediately set up camp directly in front of the EU parliament building.

Colère des #agriculteurs à #Bruxelles. Le Parlement Européen est assiégé par les agriculteurs. #AgriculteursEnColeres pic.twitter.com/M8zbZWDtqJ

— Anonyme Citoyen (@AnonymeCitoyen) February 1, 2024

Things went south quickly, as farmers clashed with skittish EU riot police who’d already set up barricades in anticipation of a less-than-friendly crowd.

…Furious farmers have clashed with riot cops, toppled statues and surrounded the European Union’s Brussels headquarters today ahead of a key summit.

Convoys with hundreds of angry agricultural workers driving heavy-duty tractors advanced toward the HQ, hell-bent on having their complaints about excessive costs, rules and bureaucracy heard by the bloc’s leaders.

After warming themselves at burning piles of pallets, the farmers this morning mounted their vehicles and entered the Belgian capital to the rumble of engines, fireworks and blaring horns, in the culmination of weeks of protests around the bloc.

The square in front of the EU Parliament became filled with tractors and farmers set up bonfires. As riot cops stood guard behind barricades and staffers watched from the front steps, the angry farmers hurled eggs at the building.

Riot police around the European Parliament building in Brussels.

Farmers’ protests intensify.

pic.twitter.com/YRpUGKqj3T

— eve (@eveforamerica) February 1, 2024

Reuters is reporting that there were “around 1300 tractors” taking part in the protests, which means a substantial presence as far as protesting farmers. Angry as they have been for so long, it didn’t take much for the scuffles to start, and things to begin flying through the air.

Farmers threw eggs and stones at the European Parliament on Thursday, starting fires near the building and setting off fireworks amid protests to press a summit of European Union leaders to do more to help them with taxes and rising costs.

Small groups tried to tear down the barriers erected in front of parliament – a few blocks from where the summit was taking place – but police fired tear gas and sprayed water at the farmers with hoses to push them back.

A statue on the square was damaged and major thoroughfares in Brussels were blocked by around 1,300 tractors, according to a police estimate. Security personnel in riot gear stood guard behind barriers where the leaders were meeting at European Council headquarters.

“If you see with how many people we are here today, and if you see it’s all over Europe, so you must have hope,” said Kevin Bertens, a farmer from just outside Brussels.

“You need us. Help us!”

One of the last straws in the basket on EU farmers’ backs looks to be coming to fruition, and is a good part of the impetus for these frustrated protests – not only today’s, but across Europe. French farmers have been so active in their objections to something known as the EU-Mercosur trade deal that French President Emmanuel Macron has personally appealed to EU President Ursula Von Der Leyen to not to continue the negotiations for now.

What is the deal and why are EU farmers incensed? “Mercosur” is a South American trade bloc made up of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. The EU has been in some sort of free trade negotiations with them since 2000, which never amounted to much until recently.

… The EU and the South American nations have been negotiating since 2000. The contours of a deal were agreed in 2019, but a final version still needs to be ratified.

The problem is a whole buttload has changed for European farmers in those intervening decades. At long last, the EU is looking to throw the door wide open to South American agricultural imports – including beef – in exchange for reduced tariffs on EU products.

Europeans farmers experienced a sincere case of “EXCUSEZ-MOI, MES AMIS?!”

EU climate cult restrictions have made farming so damn near impossibly expensive, farmers can barely eke out a living themselves. Now their betters in Brussels are going to allow a flood of cheap, agricultural imports produced in places where no one has to follow the byzantine and ruinous laws European farmers do and sell the exact same thing?

I THINK NOT

Farmers are over it and the French president is at least making the proper noises, trying to chill the disruptive protests in his own country with a “Look at moi doing something” effort.

…The French government rejects the trade pact, French President Emmanuel Macron reaffirmed during a visit to Sweden on Tuesday.

“France is opposed to it because it’s a deal going back several years that doesn’t make Mercosur farmers and companies abide by the same rules as ours,” he said.

In a side note, if I was, say, Africa, Indonesia, etc., I’d be looking at this with a jaundiced eye, because of what the EU has attempted to require my countries do environmentally if I wish to be privileged to trade with them. Seems…discriminatory.

The German government, as you might imagine, is totally onboard with the Mercosur deal – they hate farmers anyway. Pfft (Why is Germany a disaster? Look no further than the Green Bond villains running it, as I always say.). But in the same breath they’ll warn about the “right-wing rising” in the next round of elections in an attempt to frighten voters out of electing anyone who is not them.

That far-right bogeyman isn’t going to fly.

…The protests across Europe come ahead of European Parliament elections in June in which the far right, for whom farmers represent a growing constituency, is seen making big gains, according to recent polling.

While the farmers’ crisis is not officially on the agenda of the EU summit, it is bound to be discussed, at least on the margins.

Already, with all eyes on Viktor Orban as the other 26 EU leaders want to convince him at the summit to join a plan to offer stable financing to Ukraine, the Hungarian Prime Minister made a point of meeting farmers overnight.

Orban certainly did nothing to assuage elite fears of being booted from their cushy perches in Brussels by the right-wing bogeyman, either.

…”We need to find new leaders who truly represent the interests of the people,” his spokesman quoted him as saying, referring to the European Parliament elections.

It’s no wonder they hate him.

Speaking of Orban, the EU, and farmers, it didn’t help the heat in front of the building that the EU is knotted up trying to send €54B to Ukraine while ignoring what and who’s on their doorstep. It is kinda fun that the fella gumming up the works was out talking to the farmers instead of inside with Ursula.

European Union leaders will propose on Thursday holding an annual debate on a planned 50 billion euro ($54 billion) aid package for Ukraine in an effort to overcome opposition from Hungary, according to draft summit conclusions.

French farmers are dumping tons of cow poop on government buildings. German tractors are blocking cities. And Belgium farmers are bringing the European swamp to a crawl.

Are the Canadian truckers going global?

Europe has been seized by a "Peasant War" setting the global… pic.twitter.com/rZmugpAqC5

— Peter St Onge, Ph.D. (@profstonge) February 1, 2024

If some effort isn’t made by Von Der Leyen and her elitist cronies today to address the farmers and their quite legitimate concerns, I sure hope they all brought raincoats.

Humpty Dumpty makes a helluva mess when he hits.