The Portuguese are joining farmers protesting across Europe.
Highways have been blocked in Portugal since Thursday. Portuguese farmers are blocking some highways near the border with Spain, such as the A-25 and A-6.
The basic demand with which farmers take to the streets is the lack of acceptance of the Common Agricultural Policy.
Portugal stopped
The largest protests are on the A-25 motorway, on the section leading to the Spanish-Spanish border of Vilar Formoso and Fuentes de Oñoro, where the last 12 kilometers of the motorway are occupied by approximately 400 tractors. This is the border point with the highest intensity of truck traffic, so all trucks passing through this area are routed on secondary national roads.
A similar situation exists in Elvas, near the Spanish province of Badajoz, where Portuguese farmers have blocked the A-6 motorway. Farmers announce difficulties on further roads.
We want farmers and our activities to be respected. This is a peaceful demonstration asking the government to take action on behalf of the farmer, said Paulo Tomé from Idanha-a-Nova, one of the farmers taking part in the event.
National policy is bad and EU policy is even worse
Farmers protesting in Portugal argue that neither national nor EU policy is consistent with their needs.
This is a mass protest – says Pedro Santos, director of CNA – National Confederation of Agriculture – Everything is happening as a practical result of the years of the CAP – Common Agricultural Policy, which kept agriculture in a very complicated financial situation, with low incomes, very low production prices and an unfair aid system. Now it exploded
The leader of the National Confederation of Agriculture emphasizes that the package of almost EUR 500 million promised by the Minister of Agriculture “is only a manifestation of the willingness to spend money.”
The only specific action in the short term, i.e. reducing the ISP (tax on petroleum products) on agricultural diesel oil to the permitted minimum, has already been provided for in the state budget for 2024, he notes.
What farmers, especially small and medium-sized farmers, need today is an increase in their income as a result of production. For this to happen, it is necessary to put an end to the central problem from the beginning, which is the dictatorship of large distribution – says Paulo Raimundo, Secretary General of the PCP.
Agriculture Minister Maria do Céu Antunes said that farmers must trust the government and that it will ask the European Commission for permission to use the state budget to avoid market disruptions.
Asked about the request for Brussels to give member states flexibility in managing the CAP, Maria do Céu Antunes said that “at best it could take two months to get this authorization”, but believed that the ongoing protests today in Belgium could accelerate this process.
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