Farmers threaten govt with tractor blockades around Greece

Three years ago, fiery young Greek radical opposition lefty Alexis Tsipras climbed onto a tractor to give a speech to hundreds of cheering farmers. He vowed to crush harsh reforms leading to nowhere. Now that he is the country’s prime minister, 15,000 tractors have been stationed at central points of the national road network to create more than 50 blockades aimed at amping the pressure on the government to lift the very reforms the man on the tractor said he would get rid of.

The largest blockade is at Nikaia, Piraeus, where more than 3,000 tractors are stationed and the smallest block of 300 tractors is at Kilkis. At noon on Saturday, farmers’ federation representatives are to meet at Tempi, Larissa, to charter a common line of actions against the social security reforms for the agriculture sector being tabled in Greek Parliament.

In the framework of this meeting, the Regional Prefecture of Thessaly announced on Friday that a section of the road network of Piraeus-Athens-Thessaloniki-Evzonon (known as P.A.Th.E) is to be closed from the Gyrtoni comb to the Stomio crossroads from midnight onwards.

As in previous days, the farmers road blockages will be intermittent with the traffic flow stopped for brief intervals. The situation is set to worsen on Monday as farmers intensify their protest.

At noon today, farmers will decide as to whether they will cut the country in two until the government is forced to cancel social security and tax changes that have been deemed necessary by Greece’s creditors (EC, ECB, IMF, ESM). Representatives of agricultural co-ops around Greece told protothema.gr that the press conference held by Labor, Social Security and Social Solidarity Minister George Katrougalos, Rural Development and Food Minister Evangelos Apostolou, Alternate Finance Minister Tryfonas Alexiadis and Radical Left Coalition (SYRIZA) Government Spokeswoman Olga Gerovasili failed to convince them to stop their protests.