Farmers in Greece block highway during protest

Greek farmers blocked the Thessaloniki-Moudania highway with tractors in protest. Greek TV channel reports this ERT.

Protests began on Saturday, February 3, at the country’s largest industry exhibition, “Agrotika,” which attracts tens of thousands of people. During a rally in Thessaloniki, farmers threw several boxes of chestnuts and apples onto the roads. Producers were not satisfied with the initiatives proposed by the government to improve the situation in agriculture.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced a reduction in the cost of electricity for farmers by 10 percent from May to September, while part of the debt to state-owned electricity company PPC will be written off and 87 million euros will be paid in installments. Additionally, the authorities will subsidize the construction of solar parks for agriculture.

Farmers have announced their intention to continue the fight. They noted that the statements of the head of the Cabinet of Ministers on support for agriculture were made under pressure from highway blockades and do not meet basic requirements, the satisfaction of which is “a matter of their survival.” From Monday, February 5, Greek farmers will seek nationwide coordination of the blockade.

Earlier, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban complained of a sleepless night before the EU summit in Brussels due to the noise of tractors from protesting farmers. “About 200 tractors stopped under my window and honked their horns all night, waking me up every ten minutes with the sound of tape recorders,” he said. Orban also said that protesters asked him to block Ukrainian supplies, “if Brussels doesn’t have common sense.”