Trade unions within Spain have decided to take political action due to their frustration with European Union policy around the pricing of fruit and vegetables. The trade unions aim to secure a guaranteed increase in the retail prices farmers can sell their fruit and vegetables. Under the current European Union rules, farmers are currently are losing money rather than making it.
Torres, a Spanish farmer told Euro News: “We depend on the market.
“It forces us to compete at a disadvantage with third countries that do not meet our production requirements.
“There can be no same market in which you demand a lot more from your farmers and much less from those outside it.
“That is not fair, that is not reciprocity, these are not equal conditions for the same market.”
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Jorge Garcia Luna, a Spanish olive and almond farmer told PA: “We are in a situation that you can’t afford to abandon farming but you can’t afford to keep going.”
Tobacco cooperative manager Jose Maria Ramos said regarding the protest: “This is going to make it even more difficult to continue with the cultivation of tobacco.
“People just can’t go on, they go into the streets and show their anger.”
The roads that have been blocked are in southwestern Spain near the Portuguese border.
Democratic Tsunami is a Pro-independence group that was reacting to the results of Spain’s general election last week.
The Catalan separatists organised the protest by sending out a message via Twitter to their supporters.
The organisation tweeted: “We call for a general mobilisation towards the border, with or without a vehicle.
“This mobilisation wants to call out to the international community to make Spain understand that the only way is to sit and talk.”