BRUSSELS, Dec 13: Some 80,000 labour activists and demonstrators of many stripes gathered in Brussels late on Thursday to voice their dissatisfaction with plans for Europe’s future on the eve of a two-day summit Friday and Saturday.

The demonstrators, whom both organizers and police estimated as near 80,000 in number, came from some 20 countries, summoned here by the European Trades Union Confederation (ETUC), which represents 60 million unionized workers in 34 countries.

“Since Nice (the EU summit of December 2000), we’ve seen some minor progress, but European social issues are advancing very slowly,” said Emilio Gabaglio, ETUC secretary general.

“When we began this kind of mobilization, the number of demonstrators was far more limited, and the force of their voice was modest,” he said. “Today, these movements have taken on a much greater scale...increasingly more dynamic, with a social conscience that is no longer purely national.”

Most numerous among the demonstrators, according to their organizers, were those from Belgium (45,000) and France (20,000).

Many clad in bright clothes emblazoned with their unions’ logos, the demonstrators marched peacefully towards a plateau near the Laeken royal palace in the north suburbs where the summit opens Friday morning.

For the most part, they avoided the city centre and areas around European institutions here, where barbed wire barricades and riot police were out in force.

As the afternoon slipped into evening, the demonstrators grew in number and diversity, with delegations from Poland’s Solidarity trade union and IG Metall, the main union in Germany’s metallurgy complex.

Croats, Italians, Luxembourgers, Portuguese, Slovaks and Turks were among the marchers, whistling and screeching sirens in a mounting, multinational cacophony.

“Europe is us,” chanted the French delegation.

“Priority to a people’s Europe. ‘No’ to a market Europe,” read huge banners, some of which also demanded a stop to the bombing of Afghanistan.

John Monks, secretary general of Britain’s Trade Unions Association who led a 100-strong delegation to Brussels, said, “It’s very important to remind Europe’s political leaders that, first and foremost we must build a Europe for all of the people.

“A good number of British workers unfortunately still don’t realize that it is at the European level that workers rights can be defended.”—AFP