MADRID, February 12 (EFE) – Spanish farmers took to the streets on Monday for the seventh day in a row across the country, including in the region of Madrid, to protest the European Union’s cuts to agricultural subsidies.
In recent weeks, Spanish farmers, together with their colleagues in France and other European countries, have been working to improve the flexibility of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), extend the temporary tax credit on agricultural diesel, and raise concerns about agricultural damage. It calls for changes to EU policy, including support for the sector. Drought continues in the country.
Ivana Martínez, the regional secretary general of Madrid’s Coordinator of Farmers and Ranchers Organization (COAG), told EFE on Monday that the protests blamed the “pressure” exerted by EU policies that “threatened the survival of farms”. he said.
Farmers and ranchers in 50 or 60 tractors set out in a protest convoy from the city of Titurcia at 9 a.m., heading to Torrejon de Velasco, both in the southern province of Madrid.
Spanish truck drivers are also protesting, striking for a second day to demand better tax cuts and petrol subsidies.
Despite the fact that the Spanish National Federation of Transport Associations (Fenadismar), which brings together more than 32,000 trucking companies and more than 60,000 vehicles, does not support the strike, the National Platform for Transport Defense on Monday said: He called out on social media. Spanish truck drivers are mobilized.
The government sympathizes with the demands of farmers and truck drivers and has called for protests to be peaceful.
Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Minister Luis Planas said on Monday that he would submit a proposal to simplify the CAP at the EU Council later this month, and would also take up other issues such as EU food supply chain law and agricultural insurance. EFE
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