CASTELLON: Spanish farmers blocked major roads with tractors and burning tyres on Wednesday, disrupting access to port terminals as anger spreads in Europe's countryside against high costs, bureaucracy and competition from outside the European Union.
On the second day of their protests, the Spanish farmers blocked the main entrance to the port of Castellon in the eastern region of Valencia while police agents watched from close by.
More than a dozen big roads were blocked across Spain on Wednesday morning, traffic authorities said. Several convoys of tractors were converging on Barcelona and planned to enter the city centre to meet local authorities.
Farmers across Europe, including in Germany, France and Belgium, have been holding protests, some of which have turned violent.
They say EU rules to protect the environment make them less competitive than farmers in other regions such as Latin America and the rest of Europe. They also complain against what they say are increasingly obscure bureaucratic measures.
"It is totally unfair competition," citrus farmer Felipe Domenech, 55, said that at the gates of the port in Castellon. "If fruit comes from abroad it should enter under the same conditions." Union leader Unai Sordo on Tuesday described the farmers protesting as businessmen, not workers, but said that did not undermine the legitimacy of their demands.
"They are right in some demands and less right in others," he told reporters.
The protests prompted the Spanish government to distribute an additional 269 million-euro subsidy for as many as 140,000 farmers and for the European Commission, the EU executive, to scrap a plan to halve pesticide use in the bloc.
The European Commission recommended on Tuesday that the EU slash net greenhouse gas emissions by 90 per cent by 2040, an ambitious target that will test political appetite for the region's fight.
Europe's climate agenda is entering a difficult phase as it begins to touch sensitive sectors, such as farming, and as traditional industries face fierce green tech competition from China.
While the overall target was within the range recommended by the EU's official climate science advisers, the EU executive weakened part of the recommendation concerning agriculture.
Tuesday's proposal will kick off political debate on the target, but it will be up to a new EU Commission and Parliament, formed after European Parliament elections in June, to pass the final target. — Reuters
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