Brussels’ farmers protests: Stench of manure wafts through EU capital.

Police target rowdy demonstrators with water cannons as fires are lit in European Quarter.

BRUSSELS — The stench of manure, burning tires and teargas pervaded downtown Brussels on Monday as protesting farmers descended on the city’s European Quarter, escalating their action against hardship they blame on the EU’s green policies, price pressures and import competition.

A huge column of tractors paraded down the Rue de la Loi, a major thoroughfare, making their way towards the Schuman roundabout — close to where EU farm ministers were meeting under heavy guard by Belgian police.

In chaotic scenes, law enforcement put up barbed wire outside EU institutions and met the rowdy crowd with water cannons. Protesters set fire to tires, dumped manure on the street and sprayed police with hay.

Belgian and Italian unions brought with them a laundry list of complaints, from falling revenues and excessive environmental burdens, to being underpaid by food companies and undercut by foreign goods. These were the same issues that brought farmers into Brussels three weeks ago, when they toppled a statue and hurled eggs at the European Parliament.

“We’re here today because we want genuine agriculture and food laws,” said Mark Wulfrancke, policy officer of the Flemish General Farmers’ Syndicate (Algemeen Boerensyndicaat). “At the national level, politicians always point at [the EU] — we’re here so that they can’t do that anymore.”