Thessaly farmers decide to lift roadblock, ask for a meeting with PM
Thessaly farmers announced on Wednesday their decision to lift a tractor roadblock but underlined they remain unsatisfied and request a meeting with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
In an open letter to Mitsotakis, the farmers announced they would lift the roadblock on the E75 highway by Platykampos, east of Thessaly’s Larissa, linking Athens to the south and Thessaloniki to the north.
The farmers of the local Karla Lake region want the restoration of some 180,000 hectares of land around the lake that was flooded during Storm Daniel last September. As the area remains flooded, growing crops has been rendered impossible, and farmers also lost harvested goods, livestock, machinery, as well as farm equipment, for which they seek compensation.
“Following 60 days of mobilizational struggle, we unanimously decided today, February 14, to lift the farmers’ roadblock in Platykampos,” the letter reads.
The farmers expressed their disappointment in not having a representative in the 15-member farmers’ representative body that met with Mitsotakis on Wednesday.
“Not only were we not represented, but our demands were not even listed, even though we were the first to initiate protests in early January.”
According to state broadcaster ERT, the farmers’ PanHellenic coordinating committee is planning to escalate protests, roadblocks, and lifting of toll booth barriers, but the decisions will be finalized in a Nikaia meeting on Thursday.
