W. German Farmers Protest Plan to Cut EEC Subsidies

More than 15,000 farmers lit bonfires throughout the country late Wednesday as part of a nationwide protest against British and Dutch proposals to cut Common Market farm subsidies.

The chief of the Bavarian Farmers Assn. warned Chancellor Helmut Kohl against bowing to pressure from members of the 12-nation European Economic Community to cut the agricultural subsidies.

“If the (Dutch and German) proposals are approved, we will lose a quarter of our income over the next two years,” Bavarian farm leader Gustav Suehler told the daily newspaper Bild.

“The small family farm will not survive that,” the newspaper quoted Suehler as saying Thursday.

A spokesman for the National Farmers’ Assn. in Bonn, the West German capital, said at least 7,000 farmers in the southern state of Bavaria took part in the so-called Signal Fire to Brussels bonfire protests late Wednesday.

The spokesman said about 8,000 farmers in the state of Lower Saxony also joined in the nationwide protest, which came on the eve of the trading bloc’s summit to hammer out a compromise on its budget.

In the Rheinhessen area, bonfires burned for hours along a long stretch of highway south of Koblenz.

West German television on Thursday showed farmers manning the blazes with flames leaping high into the chilly night air, with one unidentified farmer shouting to the camera: “If conditions continue as they are, we no longer have a future.”

In most areas of the country, police did not interfere with the protests. The farmers eventually dispersed quietly, and no other incidents were reported, according to police in several cities.

West German farmers contend that British and Dutch proposals to cut the trading bloc’s agriculture subsidies would affect them more than their counterparts in the other 11 member nations.

West Germany, with a population of 61 million, has about 700,000 farmers.