On Wednesday evening, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez supported the demands of farmers who have been on strike since February 6, announcing that he would put pressure on the European Commission to meet the protesters’ demands. He specified that he had already sent a letter to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, on this matter.
As the head of the Spanish government emphasized, the expectations of local farmers, who paralyzed Madrid, the country’s capital, on Wednesday, “are justified.”
According to the organizers of the protest in Madrid, who estimate that several thousand farmers from various regions of the country took part in the event, about 1,500 tractors entered the center of the Spanish capital.
During the protest, there was a confrontation between the police and some of the demonstrators, who threw vegetables and eggs at the officers. The services, which used batons, detained one of the farmers near the Atocha station.
In other parts of Spain, where agricultural protests were also taking place, police detained six demonstrators on Wednesday.
In a conversation with the media, striking farmers explained that they oppose the European Commission imposing regulations that affect farmers from EU countries, while disregarding the mass inflow of agricultural products from outside Europe.
Instead of EU subsidies, we prefer fair prices for the crops we grow, said one of the farmers blocking the center of Madrid.
Spanish farmers who have been demonstrating on the roads since February 6 are dissatisfied with the agricultural policy of Pedro Sanchez’s government, claiming that it is submissive to the European Union authorities and does too little to increase the competitiveness of Spanish agricultural producers.
Among the demands of Spanish farmers is the European Commission’s withdrawal from the implementation of the so-called Green Deal, which is intended to enable the EU to achieve climate neutrality by 2050 through a number of provisions. These changes include, among others: on reducing the use of pesticides and fertilizers.
