The farmers of the plain are considering what stance they will take one day after the meeting of their representatives with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. In the quiver of their claim they still include the blocks and the descent of their tractors in the center of Athens. From today’s meetings and from tomorrow’s nationwide meeting, it will depend whether they finally resort to them, given their only partial satisfaction with yesterday’s Prime Minister’s announcements for cheaper electricity and advance payment of the excise tax on fuel.
At 17:00 the farmers of Thessaly meet and, according to information from ERT, there are many who see the government package positively.
New general meetings
The farmers in the blocks of Platykampos, Larisa and Aegialia were also informed about the aid measures announced after the meeting of the 15-member committee with the Prime Minister. New general assemblies were decided in Platykambo, Trikala, Karditsa, where the proposal of the tractor descent to Athens is expected to be put on the carpet again next Monday.
However, the final decisions of the farmers will be taken tomorrow, Thursday, at 12:00 noon, at the All-Hellenic Meeting of the farmers in Larissa, with the dominant proposal for a descent to Athens as their satisfaction was partial.
The farmers are disappointed.
Indeed, the first reactions of the farmers show disappointment, as they stated immediately after the meeting with the Prime Minister that not all of their demands are being met. At the same time, they state that they must continue their struggle at the blockades to satisfy to the maximum extent possible the demands for survival that the country’s agricultural movement has put forward all these days.”
«Not all of our requests have been met[…]We will make the decisions in our blocks. We believe that our struggle must continue, the blockades must be strengthened even more in order to further satisfy to the maximum extent possible the demands for survival that the country’s agricultural movement has put forward all these days” said, among others, the member of the Panhellenic Bloc Committee, Rizos Maroudas.
«In a negotiation you always win something, but we have no room to lose. So, as you can understand, all that if and as long as it exists, either as profits or as a withdrawal, the farmers themselves are the only competent ones to decide. What I have to say is that there was a constructive and largely meaningful dialogue […]the answers will be given by the farmers themselves” said the vice-president of the Panserrai Agricultural Association, Giannis Panagis.
“The plain is black”
«By escalating the fight“, closing customs only for trucks and going down to Athens with tractors, the farmers continue their mobilizations, said the Yannis Sdralis, member of the Panhellenic Committee of Farmers’ Blocks who participated in yesterday’s meeting with the Prime Minister.
Asked if there are different positions of representatives of the sector, who might request more dynamic mobilizations, such as the closure of national roads, Mr. Sdralis pointed out “a big gain we had is that the farmers from all over Greece managed to have five-six requests all together. Because there are no reds, greens. The plain is currently black.”
“Farmers were not even partially covered”
Regarding the essence of yesterday’s meeting, Yiannis Sdralis noted that the prime minister had the demands of the farmers for one week. He fired back saying that “all we think they sat down and worked on was energy, electricity, production costs. There he really came close to our request.”
Regarding the rest of the issues, such as the cost of agricultural oil, the Common Agricultural Policy, but also the issue of Greekization, the farmers were not even partially covered, he emphasized.
“We got nothing”
«It goes without saying that we are not satisfied with the results of the requests we gave to the Prime Minister. Indirectly but clearly we got nothing. Agricultural oil did not exist in the 2024 budget. With two days of mobilizations he announced 82 million. Just what he told us: 40 now in March and 40 in November” emphasized Kostas Mitrodemosmember of the Coordinating Committee of Platykampos Farmers.
“The margins of benefits have been exhausted”
From the side of the government it has become clear that any benefits have been exhausted on the part of the farmers, in the sense that the fiscal framework and the country’s finances are specific, as emphasized by Stavros Keletsis speaking on the First Schedule. “From now on farmers will have to consider the situation responsibly, appreciate what the government is giving and from there make their decisions» noted the Deputy Minister of Rural Development.
“Our duty is the free passage of citizens”
The government representative described the government’s intervention to reduce the price of electricity for farmers as substantial and fair. As said by Pavlos Marinakis in an interview with SKAI, the government respectfully awaits the farmers’ decision regarding the future of their mobilizations. However, he made it clear that for the government the free passage of citizens is an absolute duty, clarifying that he does not think we will reach this point.
«We have always been in constant dialogue with all producers, because we believe that we must have open doors, we must have dialogue, we must have open ears and talk to find realistic solutions. This is the only way we can move forward and deal with specific issues” the Deputy Minister of Rural Development pointed out to ERT Dionysis Stamenitis.
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