Thousands of people have taken to the streets of Brussels in a protest over job cuts.

The demonstration comes a week after the announcement of a car plant closure in Antwerp, with the loss of 2,600 jobs.

Rudi Kennes from the FGTB union said: “What I expect from the European Commission is not to sit there and say we can do nothing. They should look into the final plan of Mr Reilly (boss of Opel Europe), so that they will discover that it is unacceptable to use tax payer money from one EU member state to close factories in another member state.”

Union leaders say they are also concerned about jobs at Inbev, the world’s largest beer maker, with threats to move some operations to Poland and the Czech Republic.

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