BRUSSELS - The Associated Press


Hundreds of farmers truckers and taxi drivers blocked roads in and around Brussels on the eve of an EU summit to push leaders for help coping with skyrocketing fuel prices.

Convoys of taxis farm tractors and truckers blocked parts of Brussels' inner ring road yesterday wreaking traffic havoc. Police said some 1000 protesting vehicles in central Brussels.

Farmers were also handing out free vegetables and meat at a downtown square.

The protesters - echoing recent demonstrations elsewhere in Europe and around the world - argue that the high fuel prices threaten their livelihoods. They are demanding that EU governments step in with subsidies to ease the sting of higher prices.

Global oil prices have quadrupled in the past seven years hitting a new high of $139.89 a barrel during Monday trading. Oil was at $135.18 a barrel on Tuesday.

The high prices are pushing up costs across Belgium's economy forcing shoppers to pay out more for groceries power and transport - and eating into economic growth.



Enormous effect:

"It's been very very difficult" said truck driver Paul Delestiene from the UPTR truckers union. "Diesel has risen some 40 percent. This has an enormous effect on salaries and it's very difficult to buy vehicles or to keep staff. It's very very expensive."

Barricades went up around EU headquarters and some 800 riot police were on standby the day before leaders from the EU's 27 member nations are to gather in the Belgian capital for a two-day summit.

"The economic situation in the agricultural sector is not good right now as everyone knows and that's why we are headed for Brussels" said Benoit Clement a farmer from Wallonia. "This time the protest is a calm one; the next time they better watch out if there is no deal" on aid.

The convoys were expected to vacate the city center during the late afternoon rush hour police said.

A similar protest by Spanish French and Portuguese fishermen around EU headquarters two weeks ago turned violent with smashed windows and overturned cars.

In the largest protests in Spain earlier this month truck drivers seriously disrupted supplies to factories and markets for a week.

Prime Minister Yves Leterme told demonstrators their protest was justified.

"People are right to defend what they are doing" he told The Associated Press after meeting the protesters. "They need an income and at the moment in the market the way prices are made I think we have some problems."

Leterme said he would push the EU to ensure that its agricultural sector can produce enough for Europeans to ensure affordable prices. He offered protesting farmers a plan that would let them spread out their annual farm tax payments.EU officials have acknowledged there is little the EU can do to intervene directly on fuel prices except to promote longer-term reforms to encourage alternate fuel use and boost food production.