Farmers defy protest ban in The Hague

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Farmers drove tractors in The Hague on Saturday morning in defiance of a ban on heavy vehicles ahead of a protest against the government’s plan to cut nitrate emissions.

The city council imposed an emergency ordinance on the city on a day when thousands of farmers were expected to gather in a park and environmental activists from the group Extinction Rebellion were also planning a protest on a major highway. Authorities stationed army trucks next to some junctions, ready to block the roads if the tractors tried to access the city center.

The protests come on the eve of Wednesday’s provincial elections, in which the upper house of parliament will be indirectly elected and which could influence the proposal to reduce nitrate pollution.

Farmers are also protesting against the government’s policy of social allowances for dependent children and the treatment of residents of Groningen, a northern province, whose homes have been damaged by earthquakes triggered by decades of mining natural gas.

Rotterdam’s Rijnmond released video of a tractor convoy crossing the city’s Erasmus Bridge early in the morning, apparently on its way to The Hague. One of the vehicles carried a banner with the motto #proudoffarmers, in Dutch.

Police in The Hague said they stopped a group of tractors near town and asked their drivers to leave the vehicles in a nearby town and take a bus to the protest. The mayor of The Hague said this week that he would only allow two tractors to park at the rally.

Anger over measures to reduce nitrate emissions has spread from the Netherlands to other European countries. Just over a week ago, farmers blocked traffic in the Belgian capital Brussels with a protest involving hundreds of tractors.