German farmers, as well as workers in the haulage industry, have taken to the streets of several cities across Germany for a week of protests.
The protests have been organised by the DBV, the country’s largest farm organisation, with many smaller farm organisations in the various states of Germany also taking part.
The DBV’s plan is for all protestors to converge on Berlin over the coming days, but farmers in the vicinity of Berlin are already in the capital, with tractors lined up near the Brandenburg Gate, one of the city’s most famous landmarks.
Elsewhere, local authorities in the areas where protests are taking place have warned the public of what are likely to be significant traffic delays and road closures, in urban areas and on motorways.
It is planned that all participants in the protest would meet in Berlin next Monday (January 15) for a “large joint rally”.
The protest action is being supported by the BGL, a group representing hauliers. Their lorries can be seen joining the tractors in the various videos of the protests that have appeared on social media.
The protest is in response to government plans, announced late last year, to cut farmer reliefs on agricultural diesel and vehicle tax.
Despite the government last week signaling a climb-down on those measures, the DBV have decided to move ahead with the protests regardless, demanding that the proposed cut to reliefs be scrapped completely.
Ahead of today’s protests, the DBV said: “For competitive agriculture, support for agricultural diesel and vehicle tax exemption are essential. The [DBV], together with the state farmers’ associations…is therefore calling for the federal government’s planned tax increases for agriculture to be withdraw.
The DBV also called for peaceful and democratic protests. It urged its members to demonstrate peacefully and only take part in registered and approved protest actions.
Outside of Berlin, some of the cities seeing farmer protests today include Hamburg, Bremen, Gottingen, Potsdam, Wiesbaden, and Munich.
DBV-sanctioned protests are set to continue for the remainder of the week in several other cities, including Dusseldorf, Dresden, Augsburg, Frankfurt and Nuremburg.