The farmers’ protests spread to Spain on February 6, with tractors blocking streets in several cities across the country.
Much like their colleagues in Italy, Belgium, France and Germany, these workers are protesting what they feel is an increasingly controlling European bureaucracy, low produce prices and rising costs.
They are also attacking EU regulations that, while they are aiming at the protection of the environment, are making farmers less competitive than their colleagues operating outside of the bloc.
Among the cities affected by the blockades of farmers, Spanish traffic authorities noted, included Seville and Granada, both in the southernmost region of Andalusia, and Girona, located near the border with France.
Express.co.uk also received a video filmed overnight in Malaga, one of Spain’s most popular tourist destinations, showing tractors travelling at a slow pace.
Speaking about the tractors and trucks taking their rage to the streets in Spain, international relations expert Richard James wrote on social media platform X: “Spanish farmers blockade roads, joining EU peers’ protests.
“So that’s France, Germany, Italy and now Spain, all up in arms at undemocratic and unaccountable EU policy. And Remainers still wonder why we left…”
ASAJA, one of the largest farmer associations in Spain, had called for farmers’ protests to begin on Thursday.
However, many farmers could not wait to take their rage to the roads and moved to block streets with their large vehicles two days prior.
Speaking to Spanish broadcaster TVE, ASAJA vice president Donaciano Dujo said: “With different shades, in the whole of the European Union, we have the same problems.”
The countryside, he added to make clear how many farmers have reached their limits, is “fed up”.
This week is expected to be major for farmers’ protests also in Italy, as Danilo Calvani, the leader of the blockades in the peninsula, said: “From Thursday, Rome will be surrounded.”
Farmers have already taken hold of many Italian streets, and have attracted so much attention that the host of an extremely popular music festival, Sanremo, said he is ready to welcome the protesters on stage as the yearly competition is gearing up to begin on Tuesday evening.
Elsewhere in Europe, governments are trying to enforce policies able to quash the farmers’ rage.
Emmanuel Macron’s executive scrapped a diesel tax increase, said the EU-Mercosur trade deal expected to open the European market to tonnes of Argentinian and Brazilian beef should not be signed in its present form and pledged millions in help.
Similarly, Germany has watered down its plans to cut diesel subsidies, while the European Commission ditched a contentious bill that aimed to slash the use of chemical pesticides in agriculture.
