Tractors gather in Rome as farmers protest across Europe

In Italy, about 150 tractors gathered on Saturday in Orte, about an hour north of Rome. Demonstrators demanded better pay and conditions and announced they would soon arrive in the Italian capital.

“Italian agriculture has woken up,” said protester Felice Antonio Monferri. “It’s historic and the people here are proof of that. For the first time in their history, peasants have united under the same flag: Italy.”

Demonstrators have been calling for dialogue with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government for several days, but so far there has been no response.

“The situation is critical. We cannot be slaves to our own companies,” said Domenico Chiergi, another protester.

In Greece, about 2,000 farmers protested in Thessaloniki, the country’s second city, on Saturday, demanding more aid. Their actions came a day after Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced further support measures.

Some farmers in the mountain villages of Thessaly threw away chestnuts and apples that had become damaged due to the natural disasters that hit the region.

“We have no food. We cannot take life lightly,” said Kostas Tselas, president of the Karditsa Rural Association. “We don’t want to become immigrants, we want to remain on our land.”

Mr. Mitsotakis has already extended special consumption tax refunds on oil and local electricity discounts from May to September. This is one of a series of measures that Mitsotakis has earmarked for more than 1 billion euros (US$1.1 billion).

But Tselas dismissed these measures as “peanuts”.

French protesting farmers surround Paris with tractors, vowing ‘siege’

Risos Mardas, president of the Farmers’ Union, told reporters that a meeting was scheduled for next week “to decide on the extension of the lockdown.”

In Germany, police said hundreds of farmers on tractors blocked access to Frankfurt Airport, the country’s busiest, in protest against diesel tax reform. The Hessian Farmers’ Association estimates the number of vehicles at around 1,000, but police said 400 tractors had taken part by the time the protest ended in the early afternoon.

Protests at the Dutch-Belgian border, which closed a major highway, subsided on Saturday night, Berga news agency reported.

Farmers’ discontent has also affected non-EU Switzerland, where about 30 tractors paraded in Geneva on Saturday, the country’s first protest since the movement began in other parts of Europe. Activities were held.

“It’s very scary for us young people to not know whether we have a future in our profession,” said Antonin Lam, a 19-year-old apprentice winemaker.

He welcomed the move to greener agriculture, but called for more support in the face of competition from countries that do not have the same standards.

In Spain, the three main farmers’ unions have announced further protests in the coming weeks, with a large demonstration planned in Barcelona on February 13th.

In France, security forces lifted the few remaining highway blockades, a day after major farmers’ unions demanded concessions from the government to have them lifted.

German farmers drive tractors into Berlin to protest fuel subsidy cuts

Their mobilization forced the government of new Prime Minister Gabriel Attal to suspend plans to reduce the use of pesticides and insecticides and provide a €400 million aid package.

Romanian farmers and transporters also announced on Saturday an end to road closure protests following an agreement with the government.

The EU is scrambling to address concerns ahead of this year’s European Parliament elections.

The European Commission on Thursday promised measures to protect the “legitimate interests” of EU farmers, particularly the administrative burdens of the EU’s much-criticized Common Agricultural Policy.