ANGER SPREADS IN EUROPE’S COUNTRYSIDE AGAINST HIGH COSTS – Spanish farmers burn tyres as they block access to Castellon port
Spanish farmers blocked highways and disrupted access to port terminals as anger spread in Europe’s countryside against high costs, bureaucracy and competition from non-EU countries.
Citrus farmers set alight a barricade with tyres, fruits boxes and a Turkish flag as they blocked access to the Mediterranean port of Castellon, protesting against imports from third countries.
Around a dozen major highways were blocked on Tuesday morning all over the country, traffic authorities said.
Over the past few weeks, farmers in European countries including Germany, France and Belgium have held protests that sometimes turned violent.
Farmers say demanding rules imposed on them by the EU to protect the environment make them less competitive than peers in other regions, such as Latin America or non-EU Europe. They also complain against increasingly obscure bureaucratic measures imposed on them.
The protests prompted the Spanish government to distribute an extra 269 million euro subsidy for as many as 140,000 farmers and the European Commission to scrap a plan to halve pesticide use in the bloc, which farmers oppose.
