Brussels: Belgium shuddered to a halt on Monday, just hours before an EU summit, with transport and other public services on strike in protest at EU-ordered austerity measures.
It is the first such general strike in Belgium since 2005 and the first since 1993 launched jointly by the country's three main unions, which are angry over public spending cuts of more than 12 billion euros (USD 15 billion) for 2012.
Belgian rail workers began their industrial action late Sunday, with the first trains stopping around 9:00 pm (local time).
High-speed international services on Eurostar and Thalys and inter-city Belgian trains were also all halted today, and no buses, trams or metro trains were running.
At Brussels airport, several flights were cancelled and others delayed, while Charleroi airport -- a key low-cost hub in the south of the country -- was closed completely.
Jan van der Cruysse, a spokesman for Brussels Airport, said one in 10 flights had already been cancelled and that the situation could deteriorate as the day progressed. Steady snowfall was not helping matters, he said.
"Our other problem at the moment is that our cargo airport has been completely blocked. There is no access for trucks... this is a major problem. No one can say at the moment how long this might take," he added.
Flights were in general taking off on time, but this could also change if the snow continued to fall, said van der Cruysse.
Postal workers and staff at the port of Antwerp, one of the biggest in Europe, also downed tools.
The strike was also hitting the private sector, with employees walking off the job at the Coca-Cola factory just outside Antwerp.
Strikers were also planning blockades on Belgian roads. According to local media, protesters had already succeeded in halting traffic on some of Belgium's main trunk roads.
The Belgian government has had to arrange fallback emergency access via a military airport for European Union leaders arriving for the summit, which opens at 1400 GMT (local time).
The FGTB union, one of the three groups organising the strike, staged a rally only a few hundred metres (yards) from the venue of the summit "to deliver a message in the direction of Europe".
PTI
First Published: Monday, January 30, 2012, 17:54