Portuguese tractors block traffic, Spanish unions meet agriculture minister as farmers’ protests continue

By Alyssa McMurtry

OVIEDO, Spain (AA) - The wave of European farmers’ protests is moving south, with hundreds of tractors in Portugal cutting key traffic routes on Friday and Spanish farmers refusing to back down from planned strikes.

Despite the Portuguese government announcing an emergency aid package this week, farmers continued to demonstrate around big cities like Coimbra and Lisboa, cutting traffic with their slow-moving tractors.

The situation forced an emergency meeting with the country’s agriculture minister Maria do Ceu Antunes.

Jose Estevao of the farmers’ civic movement told the media that several points were discussed including water usage, environmental measures, production and costs.

He said the meeting was positive but he will have to ask the rest of the farmers if the government commitments were enough to call off the protests.

“There is a commitment to find answers and meet again next week,” he said.

Meanwhile, representatives from Spain’s three biggest farmers’ unions met with Agriculture Minister Luis Planas on Friday. Earlier this week, the unions had called for nationwide mobilizations from next week.

“We are facing a perfect storm with the drought, high prices and with a common agricultural policy that gives more priority to the environment than to farmers and ranchers,” Vice President of Asja Jose Manuel Cebollada told media, demanding less and more streamlined bureaucracy to help them get by.

Meanwhile, Spain’s agriculture minister blamed many of the problems on the EU, which he said is “arriving very late” to the conversation around rural issues.

He said that Spain is ahead of the game. For instance, he said that France has only given farmers €80 million ($86 million) in subsidies while Spain has spent €1.380 billion in the last two years.

Yet Planas’ commitments were not enough to get the unions to call off the protests.

“The sector will be in the streets next week and all month to vindicate our jobs, our profession and the agriculture that we’ve always been doing but now they aren’t letting us do,” said Cebollada.

Montserrat Cortinas of the UPA union said they would also be pressuring regional authorities to help out struggling farmers.

However, much of the problem is at the European level.

“Regulatory asphyxiation is the biggest complaint that can be heard in any corner of Spain and Europe,” said COAG union head Miguel Padilla. “A large part of the legislation was made without an idea of the agricultural reality.”

They also called for Spain to enforce laws that ensure food products cannot be sold below the cost of production. At the same time, they said they want to see more power behind a law that supports small-scale and family farming.

“In sectors like livestock there is an increasing concentration of business and family farms, which perform priceless economic and environmental work, are disappearing,” added Cortinas.

At the same time, other Spanish farmers’ unions or individuals have already begun protesting on their own.

In the region of Castilla and Leon, spontaneous protests have broken out, with hundreds of tractors now heading towards the capital of Leon.

The protests come after yesterday’s explosive demonstrations in Brussels. Farmers in France and other nations have also cut traffic, outraged by EU regulations and unfair competition from within the bloc or abroad.