Some 180 tractors and around two thousand people ply the Paseo de la Castellana in Madrid at noon this Sunday to demand that the Government take forceful measures and not “patches” that resolve the crisis in the countryside and guarantee fair prices for the entire value chain from producers to consumers.
The information offered by Unión de Uniones, the only farmers’ organization that called for the protest, has fallen far short of their aspirations, which promised the entry of some 1,500 tractors this Sunday to Madrid. Luis Cortes, the coordinator of the organization, has acknowledged in statements to the press that today is a “family and recreational event” for the Government to act, which if not “will increase the pressure and tension again as it already did.” they did last February”
“We still have plenty of reasons” is the motto raised today by farmers and ranchers in what is already the third wave of protests in the sector in Spain since last September, French farmers lit the fuse of the protests throughout Europe.
The first event of the day was located in the Plaza de San Juan, in front of the headquarters of the Ministry of Ecological Transition, to protest policies that according to Cortés “confuse agriculture with the environment” and do not allow production at affordable prices.
The leader of the Union of Unions has asked that in the new EU legislature, starting in September, once the new European Parliament is established, “a new CAP regulation be negotiated, an intermediate reform is needed”: ” We all say it, the farmers and the French and the Germans,” he recalled.
Cortés has stressed that it is “impossible” to produce under these conditions at affordable prices and in the case of olive oil – a product that he is donating to the Ministry for the Ecological Transition – “a kilo is worth nine or ten euros” due to the conditions in which that the farmer must cultivate the olive grove.
Union of Unions also demands “coherence” with EU policies and with those applied to imported products and “mirror clauses” so that there is equality in the conditions imposed on EU farmers and those who produce outside the territory. community: “We are not asking for better treatment, we are asking for equality.”
Regarding the proposals that the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has presented to farmers, Cortés has said that they are “a patch” and has insisted that its head, Luis Planas, commit in Brussels to promoting that “they be given a return to the CAP like a sock”.