Greek farmers continue the weeks-long protest demanding subsidy payment and relief from low prices for their output, as well as higher production costs. The protests included some 6,000 tractors deployed across mainland Greece and Crete, Greece’s biggest island, including blocking 20 major highways.
In Greece’s central region, some 4,000 tractors were deployed. They are also planning to close the port of Volos on Dec. 10. In Crete, hundreds of tractors were deployed to block access to Iraklio Airport, which, by the afternoon, was closed to flights. They also closed several major border crossings.
Speaking at a conference in Athens on Dec. 7, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis demanded that farmers end their actions, claiming the missing subsidies would be paid by the end of the year. Few believed him.
Support for the farmers was voiced by two former prime ministers, Kostas Karamanlis and Antonis Samaras, both from the ruling New Democracy party, and who have both been very vocal critics of Mitsotakis’ government.
Speaking on Dec. 6 at an event, Karamanlis issued a broadside against the government and the European Union. “The primary sector throughout Europe and in our country is facing serious problems and unprecedented challenges: Soaring production costs. Reduced producer prices. Disproportionately high prices for the consumer. Devastating effects of the climate crisis. Water scarcity. Damage or even total loss of livestock from epidemics....”
While criticizing Prime Minister Mitsotakis for his do-nothing policy for the farmers, including the failure to disburse compensation payments and subsidy payments, he slammed the European Union’s dismantling of its Common Agricultural Policy, which “from being a cornerstone of post-war social Europe, is treated by the Brussels bureaucracy as a pariah and an annoying relic of another era.”
Former Prime Minister Samaras issued a statement on Dec. 7 that the farmers’ protest is not just about subsidies: “They are mainly complaining about the uncertain future of their production. That is, about the future of their children. Who see before them both the unbearable bureaucracy of our own supposedly authoritarian state, but also Brussels!”
Underscoring the existential crisis of the farmers and for Greece, he declared: “Without farmers there is no country! With the countryside deserted, the whole of Greece will become even more vulnerable.… We need a restructuring of our production. And not … the annihilation of our producers!”
