Access to the Port of Malaga and Mercaolid, among others, blocked by tractor units
MADRID, 6 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Farmers and ranchers are collapsing the main roads and regional roads of Spain with their tractors this Tuesday to demand fair prices for their production, reciprocity in imports with respect to third countries and less bureaucracy that is suffocating rural areas.
Specifically, farmers from all over Spain have planned protests for this Tuesday in various parts of the country, including tractor units, after the mobilizations promoted by the agricultural sector in France, Germany, Belgium and Portugal.
In this way, since 8.30 several interurban roads in Barcelona and Lleida have been affected by cuts and slow speeds. Thus, in Barcelona the C-55 between Callús and Sant Mateu de Bages and the N-340 between Santa Margarida and les Monjos and Vilafranca del Penedès were affected.
Thus, farmers have estimated a thousand tractors concentrated this Tuesday at around 9:45 a.m. at the traffic cut on the A-2 road as it passes through Fondarella (Lleida). The road is closed in both directions of travel and vehicles occupy the four lanes for a length of about two kilometers.
The Community of Madrid is also experiencing damage to some of its roads due to complaints from farmers, which has caused the A-4 to be cut off in Aranjuez, while a tractor trailer near Sevilla la Nueva is causing traffic jams on the M-600. .
As reported by the General Directorate of Traffic (DGT) to Europa Press, on the M-600 highway there are delays of half a kilometer due to the movement of tractors near Sevilla la Nueva, which cause slow traffic.
Already at 7:45 a.m., a demonstration was interrupting traffic on the A-4 highway that connects the region with Córdoba, specifically at kilometer 119 in the town of Madridejos and heading towards Madrid. In addition, the A-42 presents traffic congestion at Humanejos and El Prado, in Madrid, due to the accumulation of vehicles at kilometer 35, in Veredilla (Toledo), according to the General Directorate of Traffic.
The A-5, in Maqueda (Toledo), where the influx of tractors had also been called, also presents, according to the DGT, “public disorder” due to the large number of farmers giving rise to the protest.
In Castilla-La Mancha, half a thousand tractors have cut off the A-43 towards Manzanares, where more than half a thousand tractors have managed, after a few moments by collapsing the last entrance roundabout, to access this highway.
The convoy has headed towards the town of Manzanares, where they are scheduled to meet with another column of the protest that threatens to cut the A-4 at its height, around kilometer 170.
The farmers’ protests that are taking place today in different parts of Andalusia such as Seville or Granada have also been replicated in the province of Cádiz, where demonstrations with tractors are causing traffic jams on the roads of Chiclana, Bornos and Campo de Gibraltar.
In addition, farmers and ranchers on foot and with vehicles have blocked the A-4 (Madrid-Cadiz) as it passes through La Carolina (Jaén), in addition to other road blocks in Jaén, in Huelma and Alcalá la Real. The protesters have supported this protest that has moved through social networks and has led to other parts of the province.
Farmer protests are also taking place in Malaga capital, where the accesses from San Andrés and Alameda de Colón to the Port of Malaga have been blocked. Protesters with tractors positioned themselves in the vicinity of the port of Malaga during the early hours of the morning and blocked the access to the port area with tires, some of which they set on fire.
In the region of Campo de Gibraltar at 8:45 a.m., about ten tractors left Jimena in the direction of Algeciras, which were joined by more, reaching twenty of them and causing slow traffic in the area, according to Subdelegation. Traffic on the A-7 as it passes through Los Cortijillos, in the municipality of Los Barrios, is closed in both directions at kilometer 1,113.31, as reported on the DGT website.
Several tractor caravans, organized and convened via Whatsapp messages and social networks and acting outside of professional agricultural organizations and cooperatives, have left between 7:00 and 9:00 a.m. from different points in the province of Córdoba and several of them are headed to the capital of Cordoba, to concentrate at the El Arenal Fairgrounds, while others will concentrate in other municipalities, in a protest action against the situation in the countryside.
The caravans, which follow the call of the National Group of Farmers and Ranchers of the Primary Sector, whose manifesto alludes to the “passivity of agricultural unions”, in reference to the position of organizations such as COAG, Asaja and UPA that, with Cooperativas Agro -food, do not support these protests, which have not been communicated to the Subdelegation, except for the one that started from Castro del Río and will arrive in Córdoba capital.
In Castilla y León, a tractor unit is making it difficult to enter Valladolid to access the San Cristóbal industrial estate and Mercaolid. The Emergency Service of Castilla y León 112 warns that traffic problems are expected in many parts of the region due to tractor demonstrations and report traffic jams in the early hours of the morning on the N-601, A-62, N-630. , A-231 and A-6.
For its part, the DGT has reported the black level situation on the A-62 at kilometer point 148 crescent in Tordesillas and at 170 of the A-6 in Rueda, both in Valladolid, due to a demonstration and on the A-62. -6 at kilometer point 257 in Paradores de Castrogonzalo (Zamora).
In the Basque Country, a caravan of tractors, convened by the UAGA union, is traveling through different points of the Alava road network to concentrate on the Jundiz industrial estate, on the outskirts of Vitoria-Gasteiz, in order to demand regulatory changes and bureaucratic measures that guarantee the future of the sector.
The protest, which will continue this Wednesday in front of the Basque Government headquarters in the capital of Alava, is made up of ranchers from the towns of Agurain, Bernedo, Armiñón, Kanpezu, Samaniego and Condado de Treviño.
Through these mobilizations, UAGA demands a “flexibility and simplification” of the CAP. The union argues that “excessive bureaucracy is causing unaffordable costs for professional farmers and ranchers,” and that — furthermore — “it is not making it possible to meet environmental objectives.”
The union has also demanded the “modification and expansion” of the Food Chain Law to prohibit “unfair” practices so that farmers’ prices cover production costs and demand that the Food Information and Control Agency ( AICA) apply economic sanctions “more appropriate to the violation submitted”, and that “its control resources be expanded.”
