Government calls for talks as farmers step up protest action
With farmers across Greece planning more rallies and motorcades that disrupt traffic on major highways and thoroughfares in protest at rising production and operating costs, the government on Tuesday vowed to address their concerns and called for dialogue.
“I am asking farmers to come and talk. There is nothing dividing us. We are on the same side. There is a lot to be done together. We genuinely want to support the primary sector even more,” Agriculture Minister Lefteris Avgenakis said in comments to state broadcaster ERT.
Addressing specific demands, Avgenakis said that the Energy Ministry is expected to unveil new measures for tackling rising electricity costs at the Agrotica agricultural expo in Thessaloniki, northern Greece, where protests are expected to kick into high gear.
He also noted that Athens has submitted a series of proposals to the European Commission in Brussels for improving certain specific issues in the Common Agricultural Policy to the benefit of Greece’s farmers, while vowing that all valid compensation claims will be covered in full after the reorganization of the fund responsible for managing these funds.
Earlier in the day, meanwhile, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis noted that the farmers’ fund, ELGA, has already received funding in excess of 1 billion euros to cover compensation claims from natural disasters and vowed to increase aid to farmers impacted by massive flooding over the summer in one of Greece’s main agricultural production regions, in Thessaly.
“There are two problems: the general agricultural problems that are also being faced by Europe and the matter of Thessaly, which dealt with a huge disaster. On the question of electricity prices, this is something we had vowed [to address] and we delayed, but we did it,” he told Skai radio.
