MADRID, 19 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –
A total of 500 tractors and 100 buses will demonstrate this Wednesday, February 21, in Madrid before the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Livestock, according to what the Unión de Uniones has announced, which, however, indicates that it may be that the estimate “is falls short.”
The reason for this concentration is that, of the 18 measures announced by the Minister of Agriculture, Luis Planas, last week, “none is going to allow any of the sector’s problems to be fixed,” in the words of the state coordinator of the Union of Unions, Luis Cortés.
The organization considers that these measures do not reflect a real change in the policy of the Ministry, or the Government, “which is what the countryside is demanding” and assures that it addresses the problems “in a superficial way.”
The Union of Unions has denounced that relevant issues such as bringing democracy to the countryside, the damage of wild fauna to agriculture and livestock, dialogue with the sector in order to carry out reforms that affect it, the double-rate electricity contract, by expanding aid for crises and drought or reviewing eradication programs.
In this context, Cortés has denounced that the institutions have thought that farmers “can endure everything and there comes a time when they can’t take it anymore, they are ruining themselves working and the only thing they want is to produce healthy food at competitive prices.”
Thus, on Tuesday the 20th, the protesters will leave from different parts of Spain, spending that night in municipalities near Madrid, and finally, on the 21st, early in the morning, they will enter the capital on the six radio stations.
The demonstration will start at 10:30 a.m. in the Plaza de la Independencia, towards Plaza Cibeles, until reaching the Ministry of Agriculture.
From the Union of Unions they have advanced that if Planas “ignores” on Wednesday, they will give “a turn of the screw” and will go directly to the presidency of the Government. In fact, the organization has assured that its objective is for “the Ministry to change course” or “the president to change the minister.”
Among the main problems of the sector, which have led to a general “fatigue” of farmers and ranchers, Unión de Uniones has highlighted the sale at a loss due to the lack of application of the Food Chain Law and criteria to establish the price minimum, the bureaucracy of the CAP or unfair competition.
On this last issue, specifically, they have explained that Spaniards, and Europeans in general, are not allowed to produce “under exactly the same conditions” as those produced by those outside the EU, who then export their products.
The organization has also claimed that the “sense of representativeness of a 180 degree turn” in reference to the fact that only four autonomous communities hold agrarian elections (Catalonia, Castilla y León, Extremadura and Madrid), while in the rest there are ” organizations that call themselves representative”, in the words of the member of the executive commission of the Union of Unions, Alfredo Berrocal.
Likewise, Cortés has pointed out that “if there is financing, if the technicians of certain agricultural organizations are financed with funds from the ministry, they cannot afford to anger the minister and have his subsidies taken away.”
For his part, the member of the executive commission of the Union of Unions, Anastasio Yébenes, has denounced that the sector is against the 2030 agenda and has insisted on the importance of taking care of agriculture and livestock to preserve “sovereignty” in this aspect and reduce dependence on the outside in the face of future conflicts or crises.
Yébenes has also warned against being fooled if on Wednesday you see ranchers demonstrating with large tractors, since many of them “are from the bank” or “second-hand.”
The list of requests from the Union of Unions to the Government also contemplates recovering and renewing the Law on the Modernization of Agricultural Holdings, the Review of the Strategic Plan of the CAP, the defense of the European agrarian model on the border, the rescue of the agricultural insurance plan, the reinforcement of generational change, professional agricultural diesel, reduction of VAT on goods and services used in agricultural production or preventive measures against EHE.
