This Wednesday, Catalan farmers maintained the blockade of the traffic roads cut off on Tuesday in Girona, with the AP-7 as the most prominent point.David Borrat (EFE)
The farmers of Girona who have been blocking the two main connection roads with France, the AP-7 and the N-II, since Tuesday, decided yesterday afternoon to make the blockade of both roads indefinite.
They demand a meeting with the Climate Action Minister, David Mascort – who did not show up for the meeting on Tuesday due to personal issues – and that what is agreed upon in the negotiations does not remain a dead letter.
The counselor had postponed the meeting until Monday, but he finally receives the farmers this Thursday in Barcelona.
For now, the protesters maintain the protest and threaten to keep it until Monday.
The closure of both roads is causing delays of between two and eight kilometers also on the roads around the closures, where traffic is diverted.
The mobilizations of farmers in Lleida have also blocked eight roads.
This Thursday morning there were a dozen roads blocked in Catalonia.
In Girona, the AP-7 stands out between Girona and Figueres in both directions, which seriously affects traffic between France and Spain.
The main alternative road, the N-II, is also closed, as well as the C-31 in Ventalló.
Other secondary border crossings are also closed.
These are the N-152 in Puigcerdà and the Coll d'Ares road.
The roads adjacent to these arteries have serious circulation problems due to the accumulation of trucks.
In Lleida the AP-2 is closed on the border between Catalonia and Aragon.
There are also outages on the A-2 in Tàrrega, as well as the C-14, which causes problems in the accesses to the Pyrenees and Andorra.
The accesses to the Val d'Aran also register cuts on the N-260 and the N-230.
There is no reopening forecast.
Late yesterday afternoon, some protesters traveled with seven tractors to the counselor's home, in Vilablareix, the municipality of which he was mayor.
Two Mossos riot squads and eight police vehicles blocked the street to prevent the farmers from reaching the house.
In total about thirty agents were deployed.
From the Department of Climate Action and Rural Agenda of the Generalitat they explained that, after Tuesday's meeting with the Pagesa Platform and despite the fact that a follow-up meeting was scheduled on March 11, the counselor will receive this Thursday at 11 a.m. tomorrow in the Department to representatives of the agricultural organizations that participate in the Taula Agrària, reports
Camilo S. Baquero.
Farmers from the Delta de l'Ebre and Baix Llobregat, as well as the Confédération Paysanne of France, joined
the protest in Pontós (Alt Empordà), which produced a manifesto called the
Pontós Declaration
. to show your support.
They issued a joint statement in which they demanded market regulation tools and reinforcement of community preference for agricultural products from the European Union to reverse the fall in prices at origin and confront the rise in production costs.
During the day they emptied trailers of sand, crossed trees and large branches cut on the asphalt and dumped boxes of tomatoes and peppers from Morocco that they took out of trucks on Tuesday.
Well.
Liadeta grosseta here on the border prop highway.
February 2024 for history!
pic.twitter.com/S3EcS1IVHl
— Dani Forcadell (@daniforcadell) February 28, 2024
After eating a fideuá of which hundreds of dishes were served, and receiving a proposal from the Ministry of the Generalitat that they described as “ridiculous” and “laughable”, the farmers decided to make the traffic cut “indefinite”, explained a spokesperson for Revolta Pagesa, Martí Planas.
From Unió de Pagesos, its manager in Girona, Narcís Poch, attributed this decision to the “disenchantment” with which the sector has received what they consider to be a “disgrace” by Mascort.
Planas stated: “Only the councilor
can stop this
,” and specified that they will not move until they meet with the head of Climate Action and agree on some of the points that were put on the table and that have not been taken into account. consider.
The mobilized sector, which warns that it feels "very strongly", calls for the elimination of unfair competition and demands regulatory tools for markets and commercial exchanges that ensure fair competition and prices that incorporate the costs of productive obligations.
Also the immediate cessation of the negotiations of free trade agreements and the departure of agriculture and food from the current rules of the World Trade Organization, so that other sectors of the economy are no longer favored "to the detriment of the products local agri-foods”.
Likewise, they demand a review of the European Directive on unfair practices in the food chain that eliminates “all forms of abuse and unfair competition by large industry and large distribution in the food chain”, which affect the first step of this chain: agricultural production.
The
Pontós Declaration
also requires the review of the Common Agricultural Policy to reinforce the community preference for agricultural products, to simplify and de-bureaucratize its management, control and to support professionals, people, in the distribution of aid, and not exclusively on surfaces or carcasses.
They also demand the name change of the Ministry, the resignation of the management of the Catalan Water Agency (ACA) due to, they say, the poor management that they consider has been done with the drought and that the agreements reached be recorded in the minutes. .
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