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 that they are making 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 cuts, 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. This is 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 TÃrrega, 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 they scheduled a follow-up meeting on March 11, the counselor will receive this Thursday at 11 in the morning in the Department to representatives of the agricultural organizations that participate in the Taula Agrà ria, informs Camilo S. Baquero.
To the protest in Pontós (Alt Empordí), which produced a manifesto that they called Pontós Declaration, farmers from the Delta de l'Ebre and Baix Llobregat joined in during the day on Wednesday, as well as the Confédération Paysanne of France, to show their 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.
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 convert the traffic cut into “ €œindefinite,†explained a spokesperson for Revolta Pagesa, Martà Planas. From Unió de Pagesos, its manager in Girona, NarcÃs Poch, attributed this decision to the “disenchantment†with which the sector has received what they consider a “disproportionateness†by Mascort. Planas stated: “This can only be stopped by councilor†, 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.
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The mobilized sector, which warns that it feels “very strong”, calls for the elimination of unfair competition and demands regulatory tools for markets and commercial exchanges that ensure fair competition and prices that incorporate 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 local agri-food products.
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 in large-scale industry and large-scale distribution in the food chain”, which affect the first step of this chain: agricultural production. The Pontós Declaration It also requires the review of the Common Agricultural Policy to reinforce the community preference for agricultural products, to simplify and de-bureaucratize their management, control and to support professionals, people, in the distribution of aid, and not exclusively in the surfaces or res. They also demand the name change of the Department, the resignation of the management of the Catalan Water Agency (ACA) due to, they claim, the poor management that they consider has been done with the drought and that the agreements reached be registered. on record.
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