BRUSSELS — Farmers toppled the Christmas tree in front of the European Parliament and replaced it with a pyre of burning tires and debris, just meters from where EU leaders were debating key issues for the bloc on Thursday.

While some of the tractors featured Christmas lights and cheerfully blasted video game theme songs and pop tunes through their horns, police struggled to contain rowdier outbursts at Place du Luxembourg. The EU Quarter was thick with smoke as authorities resorted to tear gas to disperse demonstrators throughout the day. 

While only a portion of protesters turned violent, even peaceful participants had harsh words for EU leaders: “We take it for granted that food will be just produced. Farmers can’t continue to produce making a loss,” said Alice Doyle, a beef and tillage farmer from Wexford, Ireland. 

The literal explosion of discontent is months in the making. In the summer, the European Commission presented its revamped agricultural budget, with a new structure and a lower guaranteed spend on farming. The Commission insists the new headline figure of almost €300 billion is a minimum spend, but farmers aren’t convinced. Farm lobbyists expected planters and ranchers from all 27 EU countries to gather in Brussels for the largest mobilization this century, coinciding with a high-stakes summit of the European Council.

In front of barriers protecting the European Parliament, piles of potatoes lay scattered after being thrown toward police officers, according to Belgian media. As Polish farmers threw deafening firecrackers at the European Parliament building, officials emailed staff advising them to stay away from windows while police were “managing the situation.”

The Commission’s push to ratify the Mercosur agreement, which beef and poultry farmers view as a threat to their businesses, added fuel to the fire as the end of the year approached. Combine that with long-standing complaints of Brussels bureaucracy, low incomes and national issues, and you get thousands of farmers on the European capitals’ streets.

“I’d like EU leaders to recognize agriculture as an essential value of Europe” said Máxime, a farmer wearing a T-shirt of the French farmers’ association FNSEA. As Place du Luxembourg filled with smoke, police blasted tear gas into the crowd before he could give his last name.

“We need to protect it to ensure that our farmers can make a decent living and ensure that they are not faced with international competition which doesn’t play by the same rules,” he added.

Copa-Cogeca, the EU’s largest farm lobby and formal organizer of the demonstration, sought to distance themselves from the destruction at Place du Luxembourg, noting that their official rallies took place in other parts of the European Quarter peacefully. 

“I don’t know who they are or what they are but it’s disappointing because it takes away from the cause and it detracts from the reason we’re here,” said Doyle, who is also deputy president of the Irish Farmers Association, which participated in the more formal protest.

Ferdinand Knapp contributed to this report.