Brussels, June 18 - Hundreds of dairy farmers protesting against low milk prices drove their tractors into Brussels on Thursday before a European Union summit, causing traffic chaos in and around the city.
The farmers from France, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands were demanding a 5-percent cut in milk production quotas for the 2009/2010 financial year, which they believe would boost prices.
About 500 tractors part in the protest. A procession across all three lanes of the highway from the city of Liege, in eastern Belgium near the German border, caused a 12-km (7.5-mile) queue.
"It wasn't a blockade, but they were only going at 30 kilometres per hour," an official of traffic information body Touring Mobilis said.
The demonstrators planned to occupy a Brussels park until Friday and then hold a further protest.
The European Commission, which administers and regulates farm policy for the EU's 27 member countries, has dismissed the idea that the milk quota system, due to expire in 2015, is to blame for weak prices.
Commission experts say EU milk production is expected to be between 4 and 5 percent below maximum quotas this year.
After a policy reform deal agreed last year, EU ministers agreed to annual 1-percent quota rises until 2015, to cushion any financial pain for the dairy sector as full market liberalisation slowly approaches.
The Commission has already taken a series of steps to shore up dairy markets, including reinstating export subsidies and private storage. It has raised ceilings on volumes of butter and skimmed milk powder that can be bought into public intervention stores, to remove supply from the market. EU farm ministers will meet in Luxembourg on Monday when the milk market will be discussed again.