Valencia Tractor Unit | Tractor protests threaten to collapse main streets of Valencia
The Valencian countryside is following in France’s footsteps and mobilizing to condemn the “dire situation” of the region and demand measures from all administrations. It was announced this Monday by professional organizations of the community, which have established a joint action plan for the protests that join those established last week by Asja, COG and UP and which will take place this Tuesday in some places such as Andalusia. Starting in communities.
In the case of Comunitat, the protest is supported by AVA-Assaja, Assaja Alicante, La União Lloradora, the Coordinator of Peasants of the Valencian Country (CCPV-COAG) and the Union of Small Farmers and Livestock Farmers (UPA-PV). Support of community agricultural cooperatives and citrus management committee.
These entities are the ones who have called for the first phase of mobilization that will begin in Alicante next Monday the 12th and continue in the port of Castellón on Thursday the 15th, while in Valencia it will also take place on Thursday the 22nd. Port. As he explained, depending on the response of the administration, they will expand the calendar and activate other types of measures.
However, along with this ‘official’ calendar (it has the relevant authority), there are also farmers who spontaneously organized themselves through messaging services and social networks to take to the streets this Tuesday and denounce the situation Is. The border that crosses the Valencian countryside.
Its objective is to make this inconvenience visible by taking it to the road, especially on the main roads of the province of Valencia, such as the A-3, the by-pass, the V-30 or the V-31 (Silla track). ), where they will move using two lanes with tractors and leave one for the transit of private vehicles and trucks, which is expected to potentially lead to more collapse of these roads due to the amount of traffic recorded daily. .
On the 21st, the tractor unit in Madrid
Chaste, Chiva, Godeleta, Tavernes de la Valdigana and Pedralba were some of the municipalities that were being mobilized late Monday. Sources in the government delegation in the community have assured that the call is not authorized and that both the National Police and the Civil Guard will remain alert.
The concentration that will hold this Wednesday the 7th on access to the port of La União Castellón has the authority to reject the port bonus for citrus imports or large national tractor-trailers before the Ministry of Agriculture determines on the 21st.
The profitability crisis, making the European Green Deal more flexible and the application of digital notebooks, reciprocity in new EU trade agreements with third countries as well as a review of the current one or a shock plan to reduce the increase in production costs are included. Some requests.
In parallel, the Road Freight Transport Defense Platform, the autonomous organization that had promoted the 20-day sector strike in March 2022, has joined the wave of farmers’ mobilization. From next Saturday the 10th, transporters will support the start of the mobilization that threatened the supply chain almost two years ago.
This was announced yesterday by Manuel Hernández, president of this minority platform of truck drivers, and Lola Guzmán, spokesperson of the 6F platform – which was created just a week ago at the beginning of the protests in France and which already has more than 100,000 members -, For the first time, it includes farmers, herders and fishermen from outside the unions. The mobilization will be able to “cut off the entrance to ports”, according to the platform, which did not want to reveal where they would be “in order to achieve effectiveness thanks to the surprise factor”.
Hernández confirmed that they would call off the strike only if they met Transport Minister Oscar Puente himself and gave him guarantees, “without the mediation of large subsidized organizations that only agree on solutions that remain on empty paper and propaganda ” ” In reference to the Committee of the National Road Transport Authority (CNTC), the ministry’s negotiator and which signed the agreement two years ago. “They will not be a one-day demonstration,” said Hernández, who condemned that the transport approved in August 2022 The law is not delivering any consequences so that transporters do not operate at losses because it is not punishing violations. Their main claim is the low prices offered for agricultural, livestock and transported products “which never reach the pockets of those reach those who produce or transport them,” he argued.
At the moment, the sector has not received any response from agriculture or transportation, although when asked about the matter, Oscar Puente explained that any strike called by transporters in support of the agricultural sector is “absolutely inappropriate” and their motivations. “Nothing” in “It has nothing to do with the region, but with politics.”
Large French wholesale market defends Spanish products
The large wholesale market of Saint Charles (Perpignan), one of the largest fruit and vegetable marketing platforms in Europe, has come out in defense of Spanish products following the criticism of former French minister Ségolène Royal towards tomatoes and therefore some French television . On the citrus side. «To false accusations that try to make us believe that foreign products marketed on French territory do not meet the same standards and requirements as French agriculture, we reply that products marketed both in France and on the common market Every product released meets the same standards and requirements. , European regulations, whether produced in conventional or organic agriculture,” he said in a statement. The Syndicat National des Importeurs-Exporteurs de Fruits et Legumes (SNIFL), the company that operates this wholesale market, expressed regret over the “acts of violence” experienced in France last week. “While the demands of the agricultural world are legitimate and understandable, today, nothing can justify actions of violence against shipments coming from Spain or Morocco.” In his opinion, “It is all the more regrettable because these fruits and vegetables thrown like this on the roadside are the result of the hard work of another farmer. For this reason, the entity “stands in solidarity and aligns itself with its Spanish and Moroccan partners against this campaign of insult and stigmatization of their products.”