Alex Trelinski
PROTESTING farmers are taking to the streets of the Madrid on Monday to demand a better deal from the government and the European Union.
Tractors have appeared once again some 10 days before the EU Council of Agriculture Ministers meets- with the demonstration aiming to pressurise the bloc to give a ‘rapid response’ to the crisis that the sector is going through in Spain and across the continent.
The three main agricultural unions – Asaja, UPA and COAG – have organised Monday’s demonstration which will run from the Ministry of Agriculture building close to Atocha railway station through to the European Commission building on Paseo de la Castellana.
Organisers have claimed that ‘thousands’ of people and ‘hundreds’ of tractors will take part in Monday’s march from all over Spain.
Protests in the countryside have taken place over the last few weeks right across EU countries as well as Spain.
Farmers are calling for the procedures required to get help from the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) to be made more flexible and simplified.
They also want health standards for products imported from outside the EU to be standardised to end unfair competition caused by low prices.
The EU has proposed short and medium-term measures to alleviate the current situation, while maintaining ‘environmental ambitions’.
Spain’s Minister of Agriculture, Luis Planas, has said he’s committed to working with Spanish agricultural associations to simplify the bureaucracy associated with CAP aid.
Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, has announced that Spain has sent a letter to the European Commission to ask that the ‘justified’ demands of Spanish farmers and ranchers be met.
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