Operations At Port Of Antwerp Disrupted By Belgian Farmers’ Protests

Operations at Antwerp, one of Europe’s largest container ports, were impacted on Tuesday as several hundred farmers on their tractors blocked the roads, especially those around the port, to fight for enhanced pay and working conditions, the officials mentioned.

The protest follows many similar actions by angry farmers based in France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and beyond, as farmers demand looser ecological rules and improved protection against relatively cheaper imports. Operations have been heavily disrupted, Stephan Van Fraechem, the director of the association of port firms named Alfaport VOKA, informed Reuters.

No freight will get delivered or picked up, as the trucks are halted, while the employees are permitted in after a prolonged wait. Van Fraechem mentioned that this was costing firms working in the port millions of euros for chaos in which they do not play a part.

The delays this is bringing to freight handling have come on top of the issues that port firms are experiencing as the ongoing attacks on the vessels in the waters of the Red Sea compel shipping majors to steer clear from the Suez Canal and instead opt for relatively longer routes.

Van Fraechem explained that supply chains are disrupted. Now, vessels working outside the typical schedule arrive at a port where they cannot unload. This is a cause of concern. A spokesperson associated with the port said roads had been blocked at different junctures, disrupting the traffic and ending up in big lines of trucks.

In France, the head of the nation’s most excellent farming union, dubbed FNSEA, explained on Tuesday that the protests that hit this sector over the past month, blocking highways across the country, might resume if the government doesn’t do more to meet the demands for improved pay as well as working conditions.

Reference: web.archive.org

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Source: Maritime Shipping News