Galery

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Since today the farmers are going out on the roads of North Greece unhappy with the lack of special farming policy supporting the producers. Minister of rural development Katerina Batseli launched on an emergency tour in the region in order to prevent the farmers’ protests. Nevertheless since today the tractors are on the highways and the frontier posts, however they did not yet stop the traffic. They rather just demonstrate their presence.

The stand of the striking farmers is different for the different regions. At the places where there are primarily farming organizations with socialistic tendency there is a wide spread opinion that it is too early to have strikes without having used the dialog options. In the more moderate organizations the farmers are backing up protests which do not include the blocking of the highways and of the borders, while the farmers who are followers of New Democracy are openly discussing to start the blockade.

In Kastoria the tractors are going out on the highways at 14:00, however they will allow the traffic in both directions – towards Thessaloniki and towards Albania. The farmers from Florina have settled around the frontier posts at Kristalopigis and Nikis and today they will decide whether to block them and how long to stay there. In Grevena the farmers have not yet decided to join the demonstrations of their colleagues.

In Larissa the farmers decided to place their tractors on the roads, however currently they will not block the roads as the traffic anyways is difficult because of the Tembi passage is closed. The mass protests in Larissa however will start after 5 days – on January 20^th. The farmers in Trikala will also start preliminary protests with tractors on the roads today.

Since yesterday the farmers from Kavala are also out on the streets and they symbolically closed for two hours the Egnatia highway. The tractors in the area of Evros are concentrated at the frontier posts Ormenio at the Bulgaria border and in Kipon, the border with Turkey. Late in Friday evening they will make clear if they will decide to close these two borders.