The police took the sensible approach to public safety during the recent farmer and construction worker protests, public prosecution department spokeswoman Linda Bregman says in an interview in the agency’s personnel magazine Opportuun.

Thousands of tractors took to the Dutch highways during three days of protests, causing long delays and traffic chaos, but only a handful of farmers were fined for breaking the law.

The failure to maintain law and order during the protests was ‘not because we did not want to, nor because we did not understand the law, but because there was no stopping them,’ Bregman said.

‘Tractors are very difficult to stop. You can set up a blockade but if there is no crash barrier, they just drive off the road into the fields to get around them,’ she said. ‘And they don’t have number plates, so that also makes it difficult.’

Lorry drivers drafted in to close roads faced intimidation, she said. ‘And the public backed the demonstrators. Then you face dilemmas. If you get tough, the situation can escalate, with all the risks that brings.’

‘In fact we failed to ensure the ban on tractors on the motorway was adhered to,’ she said. ‘But I think the police acted very sensibly. They opted to focus on safety.’