Farmers at Nikaia meeting decide to take the fight to Athens
ΣΧΕΤΙΚΑ ΑΡΘΡΑ
Farmers coming together from 68 road blocks around the country for a meeting at Nikaia in Larisa on Sunday decide to take the fight to Athens, as of next Friday. In a unanimous decision, they voted to set off in tractors and coaches for the capital and “camp” in Syntagma Square opposite Parliament for at least two days, depending on the weather.
During the coming week, meanwhile, they will step up mobilisations by extending the length of road blocks in coordination with each other. They also decided not to take part in a meeting called by Rural Development and Foods Minister Vangelis Apostolou in Parliament, before the appropriate Parliament committee. The same stance on the Tuesday meeting in Parliament will also be adopted by the farmers that did not take part in the Nikaia meeting, they said.
The farmers also agreed on a series of demands, including a tax-free allowance of 12,000 euros a year, that the government withdraw proposed legislation on tax and pension reform, that it abolish tax measures recently taken for the farming sector and ‘standard of living’ wealth indicators. Other demands include tax-free diesel and abolition of VAT on farming equipment, settlement of overdue loans to avoid home foreclosure and the abolition of a new tax on wine and the Greek spirit ‘tsipouro’ made from grapes.
The farmers gathered at Tempi, who did not take part in the Nikaia meeting, went ahead with plans to again close the national highway at Tempi for 24 hours after 18:00 on Sunday, with police directing traffic to alternative routes.
Also to close from 17:00 to 20:30 is the Larisa-Agias road at Gerakari.
Meanwhile, the movement of traffic continued to be seriously hampered in the two main roads in Messinia, in the southern Peloponnese, where farmers at Asprohoma closed the road for 12 hours from noon until midnight, and those at Kalonero blocked traffic from 15:00 until 19:00.
Long delays and tailbacks also awaited drivers on the Tripoli-Argos national road, which farmers blocked shortly after 13:00, and at the Isthmus, where farmers also blocked the old national road at Kalamaki at 15:00 and stopped all traffic heading to the Peloponnese and western Greece until 22:00.