Madrid, (EFE).- Hundreds of farmers have been protesting for five days across Spain against the signing of the European Union’s agreement with Mercosur, the South American trade bloc.
With tractors, cowbells, and banners with slogans such as “Healthy food, fair trade now” and the closure of several Spanish highways and roads, various associations and unions are protesting against the agreement, which the EU plans to sign on Jan 17 in Asunción, considering it harmful to Spain’s agricultural and livestock sector.
Protesters in Galicia, in northwestern Spain, insisted on Monday that the pact “jeopardizes access to healthy food and fair prices.”
The Sindicato Labrego Galego (SLG), one of the organizing unions, recalled that “the European Union and the Mercosur countries are about to sign an agreement that sells out the food sovereignty of Europe and Latin America and that aims to close the deal despite the majority rejection of society and the agricultural sector.”
The agreement, denounced by the SLG, “benefits the interests of large multinationals and agribusiness, while threatening the viability of family and peasant agriculture on both sides of the Atlantic.”
Protesters at another demonstration in the Galician capital, Santiago de Compostela, freed the section of a highway that they had been occupying, and its organizers explained that new protests would be held with the aim of achieving protection for the regional agricultural and livestock community.
In Catalonia, in northeastern Spain, traffic jams also occurred due to demonstrations involving tractors and farmers’ vehicles, as well as several roadblocks.
In Tarragona, on the Catalan coast, protesters blocked the city center on Saturday, led by 150 people on foot and followed by tractors.
One of their spokespeople, Ramon Rojo, pointed out that the EU-Mercosur agreement harms farmers and society in general because the products that will arrive from South America “will not pass the relevant controls and, in some cases, use pesticides that are banned in Europe.”
“Europe allows them to be imported, but it doesn’t let us use them,” said Rojo.
The association of farmers from Álava and Treviño (Ataca), in the Basque Country (northern Spain), also organized several “tractor protests” to demonstrate against the agreement, with caravans of up to 11 kilometers on the highway connecting with France, which returned to normal on Monday.
Basque farmers believe that this agreement is “disastrous” for the Spanish and European primary sector because it opens up the European market to competition from an agricultural bloc four times larger than the EU, with much lower wages, taxes, and environmental, labor, and health requirements.
There have also been numerous agricultural protests in recent days in other European countries, including France, Greece, and Germany. EFE
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