Horns blaring and engines roaring, 100s of tractors bring farmers’ plight to an EU summit

By RAF CASERT
Associated Press

BRUSSELS (AP) — Convoys with hundreds of angry farmers driving heavy-duty tractors are advancing toward European Union headquarters where leaders are meeting at a summit Thursday. The farmers are bent on getting their complaints about excessive costs, rules and bureaucracy heard in a culmination of weeks of protests around the bloc. The farmers entered the Belgian capital with the rumble of engines, firecrackers and blaring horns piercing the early morning slumber. The EU summit was supposed to be laser-focused on providing Ukraine financial aid for its war against invading Russia, but the farmers will try to squeeze their plight onto the informal agenda too.