More than 100 tractors, thousands of farmers, ranchers and fishermen will collapse the center of Madrid
MADRID, 25 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Farmers and ranchers, convened by the agricultural professional organizations Asaja, COAG and UPA, will protest this Monday in Madrid, coinciding with the meeting of the Council of Agriculture Ministers of the European Union, and to which the national fishing sector has also joined.
Specifically, a hundred tractors and thousands of farmers, summoned by the agricultural organizations Asaja, COAG and UPA, from all over Spain, will tour the center of Madrid this Monday under the motto ‘The countryside demands support, respect and recognition’ to demand solutions to the many problems that the agricultural sector has.
The protest, which is taking place coinciding with the important meeting of the Council of EU Agriculture Ministers in Brussels, will begin at 11:00 a.m., leaving from the Ministry of Agriculture to run along Paseo del Prado, Recoletos and Paseo de la Castellana until arrive at the European Commission Office in Madrid, and is authorized until 3:00 p.m.
In this way, the Spanish countryside continues to show its discomfort and brings its protest back to the Spanish capital after more than two weeks concentrating in different parts of the country and after last Wednesday’s concentration, which already collapsed the main roads of the capital with about 500 tractors.
Asaja, COAG and UPA have chosen this date to bring the protest to Madrid, coinciding with the EU Council of Ministers, which will debate possible ways to guarantee rapid and structural responses to the current crisis facing the agricultural sector.
European ministers will also have to decide on the flexibility of the CAP (reinforced conditionality rules) and the negotiation of ‘mirror clauses’, two important issues that are vital in the demands of producers.
Farmers and ranchers also remember that in Spain there are also essential reforms that the sector demands, such as a change in the operation of the Agri-Food Chain Law, an agricultural insurance system that responds to the needs of producers, taxation in accordance with the increases in costs borne by the sector and urgent investments in irrigation.
In this way, it is expected that the tractors will leave this Monday at 09:00 a.m. from the Arganda Bridge to access the capital through National 3, Avenida del Mediterráneo, City of Barcelona to concentrate on the Paseo de Infanta Isabel, in front of the Ministry of Agriculture.
From the Department led by Luis Planas, the tractors will be accompanied by thousands of farmers on foot and will go to the headquarters of the European Commission Office (Paseo de la Castellana, 46), where the interventions of the top officials of the convening organizations.
A protest that is also joined by the fishing, aquaculture and fishmongers sectors. Thus, the Spanish Aquaculture Business Association (Apromar), the Spanish Fishing Confederation (Cepesca), the National Federation of Provincial Associations of Retail Entrepreneurs of Fish and Frozen Products (Fedepesca) and the National Federation of Fishermen’s Guilds (FNCP), join the their complaints and will distribute more than 1,000 squid sandwiches during the tour.
The fishing sector will protest under the motto ‘For the future of fishing, aquaculture, fishmongers and the health of consumers in Spain’ with the aim of joining citizens to defend with the Government and together with its primary sector, before Brussels, the right to “dignified production and distribution of basic foods, the only way to ensure quality food and healthy consumption.”
The sector, which will be attended by representatives of all the fleets and ports of Spain, the aquaculture environment and specialized trade, will distribute more than 1,000 squid sandwiches that day among the attendees as a symbol of the fusion of one of the most traditional icons of the capital with fishing activity.
With its participation, it reinforces support for the agricultural sector with which it shares common demands such as the “environmental obsession” of the EC when it comes to legislating, administrative complexity or unfair competition from third countries, and opens its own profile of problems that They must be resolved such as the drop in fish consumption or the Government’s indifference to the repeated requests for VAT reductions to encourage it.
On that day, in Brussels, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Luis Planas, will defend achieving measures to simplify the bureaucracy of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and address the mirror clauses to third countries, demands requested by farmers and ranchers.
Planas has pointed out this week that the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, sent a letter to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen “supporting” the one that Agriculture had in turn sent to the President of the Council and the European Commission of ahead of this Monday’s meeting.
In this way, Spain will defend the simplification in matters of conditionality, where it believes that some adjustments should be “formulated”, as well as the 2019 directive on unfair commercial practices, where Planas recalls that Spain has the Food Chain Law, as well like mirror clauses.
However, Planas was pleased that Europe is listening to the “strong message” from farmers and ranchers in all countries.
“What is happening in Spain probably would not have happened if what happened before in France or Germany had not happened,” he recalled.
A meeting in Brussels that appears key for the future of the European agricultural sector, after the European Commission has proposed relaxing some of the environmental requirements of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) that agricultural and livestock farms must comply with to alleviate the administrative burden that they must endure, in a new show of solidarity with the sector that seeks to appease the mobilizations that have emerged just four months before the European elections.
