Hegoalde farmers take their tractors to the streets to denounce that their situation is “unsustainable”

As they did in Iparralde last week, the farmers of Hego Euskal Herria will join the European protests starting today and will take their tractors to the streets to denounce that their situation is “unsustainable”: they will demand changes in environmental regulatory requirements and more flexibility of the Common Agricultural Policy (PAC).

At the moment, there is no unitary call. The UAGA, the Alava agricultural union, has called its protest for February 6 and 7 in Vitoria-Gasteiz, while EHNE and ENBA have planned a rally with tractors for Friday, February 9, in Bilbao. For their part, three tractor units, summoned by individual farmers through a WhatsApp group, will tour different parts of the territory today.

In a statement, UAGA explained that this Tuesday a tractor unit will enter the Alava capital between 10:00 and 11:00 a.m., meeting in the Jundiz industrial estate. They will spend the night in a parking lot on the outskirts of the capital to leave in a caravan on Wednesday morning to the Basque Government, where the central event of the mobilization will take place, with the reading of a manifesto. Next, they will return to Jundiz to protest in front of the different logistics platforms that work there.

Likewise, three tractor groups summoned by individual farmers through a WhatsApp group, will visit different points of Navarre. One of the marches will leave from the Azagra area towards Cárcar, another from the Valtierra area towards Tudela and the third from Cintruénigo towards Castejón and Tudela. It is estimated that around 300 tractors can participate. UAGN, EHNE and UCAN do not participate in these mobilizations, entities that, as they have confirmed, are in contact to organize a joint calendar of protests in the medium term.

For their part, the agricultural unions EHNE and ENBA of Bizkaia have called a rally with tractors for the next 9th in Bilbao to demand that free trade agreements be put to an end and fair prices be guaranteed for the baserritarras. In a joint statement, both plants make a call to concentrate a tractor unit in Bilbao’s Arenal, after leaving the vehicles from different regions.

The unions demand a flexibility and simplification of the current CAP, as well as the prohibition of unfair practices in the international market. In that sense, they demand the immediate cessation of negotiations of free trade agreements, such as Mercosur.

At the moment, Gipuzkoa is the only territory that does not contemplate mobilizations.

On the other hand, the National Platform for the Defense of the Transport Sectorwhich brings together thousands of self-employed road transporters and SMEs, has decided to join the farmers’ protests with the call for a indefinite unemployment starting next Saturday. It is the same platform that – despite not having the support of the employers’ associations that bring together the large companies in the sector – in March 2022 already promoted a 20-day strike that put the distribution chain of the Spanish State in check.