As they drove through the streets of the capital they honked their horns to cheers and waves from passersby. Dozens of tractors parked in front of parliament and more were set to join.

“Livestock farming died today,” read a banner on one tractor with a black coffin attached to its front.

The protest echoes grievances in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland and Italy, where farmers have staged similar demonstrations.

“No farmers, no food, no future,” a banner on a tractor in Athens read.

Greek farmers’ unions have been in negotiations with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ conservative government for weeks, but say the measures announced so far don’t go far enough to meet their concerns.

“We are coming to Athens right now to fight for a better tomorrow,” said farmer Konstantinos Katselis.

“Everything is very expensive,” he said. “Petrol, fertilizer.”

At the last toll booths on the national highway some 30 km outside the capital, farmers waved Greek flags and cheered each other on as they passed through.

Hundreds of farmers with about 150 tractors were expected to join the rally, scheduled for 1630 GMT, and try to pile pressure on the government, which has already offered discounts on power bills and a one-year extension of a tax rebate for agricultural diesel to the end of 2024.

On Monday night, farmers lined up their tractors and pickups along highways as they gathered at a meeting point in central Greece where they spent the night before heading to Athens.

“There are many problems, most of all the fuel and the energy costs,” said one of the protesting farmers, Christos, in the central Greek town of Kastro.

“Last year was catastrophic for farmers, we did not produce grapes, we did not produce olive oil, we produced a bit of cotton but it was bought for nothing.”

On Tuesday morning, dozens of farmers arrived by boat at the port of Piraeus from the southern island of Crete. More farmers were expected to arrive by bus from other areas across Greece.

The government reiterated on Monday that it is willing to discuss a more permanent tax rebate scheme in the future, but it had no fiscal room for any further concessions this year. Greece has been recovering from a decade-long financial crisis.

“We have nothing more to give,” Mitsotakis said during an interview with Greek Star TV on Monday evening.

“I think farmers acknowledge this and know very well that the government has probably exceeded even their expectations, especially on the power bills issue.”

He said the rally was expected to be largely symbolic, but farmers appeared determined to push for more concessions.

“Everyone needs to stand together, because everyone is going to win from our fight – not just us,” farmer Spyros Hatzis said.

–Reporting for Reuters by Angelos Tsatsis, Giorgos Moutafis, Alkis Konstantinidis, Renee Maltezou.

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Farmers said the protests, now in their second week after breaking out in the southwest, would continue as long as their demands are not met, posing the first big challenge for new Prime Minister Gabriel Attal.

“All possibilities are still on the table,” Arnaud Gaillot, the head of the Young Farmers (Jeunes Agriculteurs) union told journalists when asked about reports farmers could start to disrupt traffic in Paris as soon as Friday.

French intelligence services have warned the government that regional farming unions have called on their members to converge on the capital, Le Parisien newspaper and BFM TV said.

As Attal convened senior ministers with the aim of announcing concrete proposals on Friday, farmers used bales of hay and tractors to block major highways across France, the European Union’s biggest agricultural producer.

“We always have more rules to follow, we are always asked for more and we earn less and less. We cannot live from our work anymore,” 61-year-old farmer Jean-Jacques Pesquerel from the Calvados Coordination Rurale union said.

Crates of tomatoes, cabbages and cauliflowers that one group of farmers said had been imported were strewn across the A7 highway that links Marseille and Lyon, France’s second and third-biggest cities. On the southwestern edge of Paris, dozens of tractors led a go-slow during the morning rush-hour.

Asked when the protesters would lift roadblocks, Gaillot said to ask Attal: “It is he who holds the key.”

Demands

The powerful FNSEA farming union late on Wednesday handed the government a list of their demands, including better enforcement of a law designed to safeguard farmgate prices.

The union also called for continued diesel tax-breaks for agricultural vehicles, the immediate payment of EU agricultural subsidies, guarantees on insurance payouts related to health and climate, and immediate aid for winemakers and organic farmers.

“Urgent responses are needed,” said FNSEA’s head, Arnaud Rousseau.

French retailers are locked in annual price negotiations with suppliers, which the government wants concluded by the end of the month. Farmers say they will be on the sharp end of efforts to haul prices lower.

Fearing a spillover from farmer unrest in Germany, Poland and Romania, the French government has already postponed a draft farming law meant to help more people become farmers, saying it will beef up the measures and ease some regulations.

Ahead of European Parliament elections in June, President Emmanuel Macron is wary that farmers are a growing constituency for the far right.

Far right leader Marine Le Pen accused the government of complacency and backing European regulations that hurt farmers, such as rules on mandatory fallow land.

“Emmanuel Macron addresses farmers with a hand on the shoulder and then knifes them in the back in Brussels,” Le Pen told reporters. “The farmers’ worst enemies can be found in this government”, she added.

The hard-left CGT trade union, the country’s second-largest, has called upon its members to join forces with the farmers to allow for a broader social movement against the government.

Farmers in the southwest who on Wednesday sprayed manure over a local prefecture building in Agen, on Thursday directed their animal waste at a nearby Leclerc superstore, France’s biggest supermarket chain, as police looked on.

–Reporting for Reuters by Nacho Doce in Agen, Tassilo Hummel in Paris, Sudip Kar-Gupta in Brussels and Charlotte van Campenhout in Amsterdam.

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Here are some of the issues that have prompted the growing protest movement and how the government could respond.

Why are farmers protesting?

Farmers in France, the EU’s biggest agricultural producer, say they are not being paid enough and choked by excessive regulation on environmental protection.

Some of their concerns, like competition from cheaper imports and environmental rules, are shared by producers in the rest of the EU, while others such as food price negotiations are more specific to France.

Costs

Financially, farmers argue that a push by the government and retailers to bring down food inflation has left many producers unable to cover high costs for energy, fertilizer and transport.

A government plan to phase out a tax break for farmers on diesel fuel, as part of a wider energy transition policy, has also been a flashpoint, in an echo of tensions in Germany.

Imports

Large imports from Ukraine, for which the EU has waived quotas and duties since Russia’s invasion, and renewed negotiations to conclude a trade deal between the EU and South American bloc Mercosur, have fanned discontent about unfair competition in sugar, grain and meat.

Large imports are resented for pressuring European prices while not meeting environmental standards imposed on EU farmers.

Environment, red tape

On the environment, farmers take issue both with EU subsidy rules, such as an incoming requirement to leave 4 per cent of farmland fallow, and what they see as France’s overcomplicated implementation of EU policy, such as in restoring hedges and arable land as natural habitat.

Green policies are seen as contradicting goals to become more self-sufficient in production of food and other essential goods in the light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Rows over irrigation projects, as water resources become a focus in climate debate, and criticism about animal welfare and pollution in agriculture have heightened feelings among an ageing French farmer population as being disregarded by society.

What measures could the government take?

The government, under pressure to defuse the crisis ahead of European elections in June and the annual Paris farm show next month, has postponed draft legislation on attracting more recruits to farming to add other measures.

The government has promised to simplify procedures for farmers. That could mean reduced waiting times for subsidy payments or farm project approvals, or easing paperwork and audits on environmental compliance.

The government could drop its plan to phase out the diesel tax break, though it has already softened the measure by staggering the move over several years and offering to re-invest the funds in farming.

Some changes would need EU approval, such as changing the rule on fallow land, and farmers warn any concessions may come too late for this year’s production plans.

As in previous farming crises, the government could offer emergency aid. It has already pledged funds for wine producers hit by falling consumption and farmers affected by floods in the north and a cattle disease in the south, but may announce more money and quicker payouts.

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“They (the people) have completely forgotten that behind this job, there are women and men who need to make their living, to be proud again”, said Luc Smessaert, who helped organize a blockade of the A16 motorway near Beauvais, north of Paris.

The protests, heading into a second week after spilling over from neighbouring countries, come as campaigning for European Union elections gathers pace. The unrest is the first major challenge for new Prime Minister Gabriel Attal.

The government prides itself on its fight against inflation, pressuring the food sector to lower supermarket prices. But with agricultural protests spreading across Europe just as producers, suppliers and retailers conclude their annual price talks, many farmers say they are at the sharp end of this policy.

“We won’t lift the roadblocks as long as the prime minister does not make very concrete announcements … The time of talking is over, action is needed”, said Arnaud Gaillot, head of the Jeunes Agriculteurs (Young Farmers) union.

Hours after union officials met Attal on Monday evening, new convoys of tractors set out in the night to block roads across the country, protesting against what they say are unfair prices and taxes, as well as excessive green regulation.

One woman was killed and two members of her family were seriously injured as a car ran into a roadblock in the southwestern Ariege region.

Commenting on the accident in the National Assembly, Attal said “all of rural France’s is in grief today”, adding he would meet with all bodies representing farmers’ interests on Tuesday and in the coming days.

Agriculture Minister Marc Fesneau said the woman, a farmer herself, died “while defending her profession”. He cancelled his trip to an EU meeting in Brussels to travel to the site.

“To our farmers: I asked the government to be fully mobilised to deliver concrete solutions to the difficulties you face,” President Emmanuel Macron said on X.

Price wars

Farming policy has always been a sensitive issue in France, the EU’s biggest agricultural producer, where thousands of independent producers of meat, dairy, wine and other produce have a record of staging disruptive protests.

Macron is wary of farmers’ growing support for the far right ahead of the European Parliament elections in June, with Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National party leading in the polls.

“We must not give in to demagogy and simple answers. Demagogy and simplicity are the worst things to do, especially when there is a crisis like this one,” Fesneau told lawmakers.

The farming lobby says the outrage is mainly fueled by the government’s recent efforts – spearheaded by Finance and Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire – to fight inflation, urging retailers and food giants to cut prices.

“Prices are the number one priority”, Patrick Benezit, the head of the FNB cattle farmer union, told a news conference, adding pressure on suppliers was being passed on to farmers, forcing some to sell below real costs, which would go against a law aimed at guaranteeing fair prices.

Benezit also slammed the “contradiction” of the EU’s push for stricter environment regulation while also pursuing free trade deals like the MERCOSUR agreement with Latin America.

The European Commission published a report on Tuesday saying 63 measures worth 2.5 billion euros (CAD $3.65 billion) had been taken between 2014 and 2023 to support EU farmers and producers.

–Reporting  for Reuters by Sudip Kar-Gupta, Tassilo Hummel, Jean-Stephane Brosse, Piotr Lipinski, Gus Trompiz and Zhifan Liu, additional reporting by Piotr Lipinski.

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Berlin has been brought to a near standstill by the demonstration, which filled one of its central avenues with trucks and tractors as some 10,000 farmers arrived to cap a week of protests against taxes that have become a flashpoint for anti-government anger.

“I can’t promise you more state aid from the federal budget,” Lindner told the crowd from a chilly stage in front of the Brandenburg Gate. “But we can fight together for you to enjoy more freedom and respect for your work.”

The protests have heaped pressure on Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition as it struggles to fix budget disarray and contain right-wing groups.

The protests surged after a government decision to phase out a tax break on agricultural diesel as it tried to balance its 2024 budget following a constitutional court ruling in November that forced it to revise its spending plans.

Faced with a backlash, the government has already said it will maintain a tax rebate on new agricultural vehicles and spread the scrapping of the agricultural diesel subsidy over several years.

But farmers, with the vocal backing of the opposition conservatives and the far-right, say that is not enough.

“I have respect for every politician who is prepared to come to us,” said Farmers’ Union head Joachim Rukwied, who at one moment had to take the microphone from Lindner and beg the crowd to stop jeering for long enough to listen to him.

“The finance minister is here,” he said. “It makes no sense to boo him.”

The government has taken a conciliatory tone as concern has grown that political debate has become radicalized and demonstrations could turn violent. Protest leaders will meet coalition leaders later this afternoon.

Lindner, describing himself as a lad from the countryside who had mucked out stables in his time, sought, to little avail, to win over farmers by contrasting their peaceful protest in Berlin to the behaviour of climate activists who had sprayed paint on the Brandenburg Gate – “the symbol of German national unity”.

But he said scarce money was needed for long neglected investments in schools and roads and for industrial energy subsidies.

Jeers grew especially loud when Lindner said money was needed because of the war in Ukraine.

“With the war in Ukraine, peace and freedom in Europe are threatened once again, so we have to invest once again in our security as we used to,” he said.

Vehicles that arrived overnight from across Germany parked nose-to-tail along the route, and crowds of farmers, wrapped up against the cold, waved German flags and held up banners marked with slogans including: “Without farmers, no future”.

The governing parties are divided over how best to meet farmers’ demands. Agriculture Minister Cem Ozdemir, a Green, has suggested financial rewards for humane animal husbandry, while some Social Democrats want to offer higher produce prices, and Lindner’s Free Democrats want to cut administrative overheads.

Several bus and tram lines closed for the protest, which was patrolled by around 1,300 officers, police said.

Disruption caused by protests and train strikes last week hurt coalition parties in the polls and propelled the far-right Alternative for Germany party to new heights.

–Reporting for Reuters by Thomas Escritt, Linda Pasquini, and Reuters TV.

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Convoys of tractors and trucks, some adorned with protest banners reading “No beer without farmers” and posters from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, gathered on German roads in sub-zero pre-dawn temperatures. In Berlin, a line of dozens of tractors blocked the main avenue leading to the Brandenburg Gate, mirroring protests last month.

Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck of the Greens, whose return from holiday last week was disrupted by furious farmers trying to storm the ferry he was on, warned in a video message that farmers’ right to protest could be exploited by fringe groups.

“Calls are circulating with coup fantasies, extremist groups are forming and ethnic-nationalist symbols are being openly displayed,” said Habeck.

Police said roads and highway slip roads were blocked in multiple locations nationwide, including several border crossings with France, causing traffic jams during the morning rush hour.

Farmers say that government plans to end two tax breaks – which currently save them about 900 million euros (CAD $1.32 billion) per year – will drive them out of business.

The coalition government was forced to find billions in savings in its 2024 budget after a court ruling in November tore up its previous spending plans.

But farmers argue the burden of these cuts has been unfairly placed on them, and have vowed to blockade major traffic and logistics routes for a week, saying that an end to tax breaks will drive farms out of business.

A poll conducted by public broadcaster ntv showed strong public backing for the protests, with 91 per cent of respondents saying they were justified.

The farmers’ backlash last week prompted Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition to make unexpected changes to the budget, including modifying plans to cut subsidies for agriculture.

Rather than abruptly ending the farmers’ tax break on agricultural diesel, the subsidy will be reduced by 40 per cent this year, by 30 per cent in 2025, and will end from 2026.

Farmers say this does not go far enough, but a government spokesperson said on Monday the government is not considering any further changes.

“In the end, a government has to decide and has to lead the way, and that can’t always be to everyone’s satisfaction,” the spokesperson said.

The opposition AfD party, hoping for major gains in a string of state elections this year, backs the farmers’ protest.

“The German government is forgetting the many difficult consequences of its policy of deindustrialisation,” an AfD spokesperson said in a statement, adding that the AfD was “ready to take responsibility” in the interests of the people.

However the head of German farmers’ association DBV has expressed concern that far-right activists may exploit the protests for their own ends.

The AfD has grown from an anti-euro party in the wake of the European debt crisis to a major opposition force fueled by anti-migration rhetoric.

The party is currently polling at 23 per cent, according to the weekly INSA poll, comfortably ahead of Scholz’s Social Democrats and his two coalition partners, the Greens and the Free Democrats. The conservative Christian Democrat opposition has 31 per cent support.

–Reporting for Reuters by Andreas Rinke, Writing by Maria Sheahan and Miranda Murray.

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The controversial abolition of tax breaks and diesel subsidies for farmers will not happen in one swoop, the spokesperson said.

Instead, tax concessions for agricultural diesel will be reduced by 40 per cent this year, then by 30 per cent in 2025 and a complete end to the subsidy from 2026.

The planned abolition of the tax break prompted hundreds of German farmers to protest in central Berlin last month.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition announced in December an agreement on the key points of the draft budget for 2024 following weeks of negotiations.

The agreed changes to the 2024 draft budget announced on Thursday, which also impact a plastic levy and funds for the national railway, will result in 2.5 billion euros (CAD $3.66 billion) less in savings than initially anticipated, said the government spokesperson.

–Reporting for Reuters by Maria Martinez.

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After a constitutional court ruling last month that cancelled 60 billion euros of earmarked debt, the federal government last week announced plans to save around 900 million euros ($983.34 million USD) annually in subsidies for farmers.

According to next year’s budget, a partial tax refund on agricultural diesel, along with a tax exemption for agricultural vehicles, will be abolished to meet the saving targets – a measure farmers said would threaten their livelihood and the competitiveness of Germany’s agricultural sector.

Farmers protested the planned cuts at the Brandenburg Gate, carrying placards reading “YOUR POLITICS ARE A DECLARATION OF WAR AGAINST FARMERS” and “TOO MUCH IS TOO MUCH! IT’S OVER NOW!” parking a number of tractors along Berlin’s Strasse des 17. Juni boulevard in central Berlin.

Germany’s DBV and LSV farmers lobbies called for the protest last week and on Monday threatened to organise further country-wide demonstrations if the measures were implemented.

“Then from January 8th we will be present everywhere in a way that the country has never experienced before. We will not accept this,” DBV President Joachim Rukwied said.

The cuts, agreed by the ruling coalition leaders of the Social Democrats, Greens and Free Democrats, could cause dispute not just within the coalition, now opposed by FDP liberals, but also within the Greens party itself, as Greens Agriculture Minister Cem Ozdemir joined the farmers in Monday’s protest.

“I will do everything in my power so that this won’t happen this way, ladies and gentlemen,” Ozdemir said.

Additional burden

Farmer Jule Bonsels from the western Rhineland region said the tax break cancellation meant an additional financial burden of some 20,000 euros per year.

“I personally find this unacceptable. We must give young people prospects, and these plans totally kill it,” she added.

Government spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit on Monday said decisions on the 2024 budget were in place and won’t be reopened, adding that the details of implementation were still being examined.

The cuts also aim to help reduce greenhouse emissions in the country’s agriculture sector that was responsible for 55.5 million metric tonnes of greenhouse emissions last year, roughly 7.4 per cent of the country’s total.

Environmental groups said farmers could bear the financial burden of the cancelled subsidies, citing profits made from rising food prices and other agricultural subsidies that are still in place.

“With all understanding for the farmers – making agricultural diesel cheaper by the state is expensive, harmful to the climate and should be abolished,” Greenpeace agricultural expert Martin Hofstetter said in a statement on Monday.

Erwin Decker, a wine farmer in Germany’s Black Forest region, said implementing the planned cuts would force many family-run farms to close across the country.

“What are we supposed to do? The land is there. It has to be harvested and if it turns into a jungle, no one gains anything,” Decker said.

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The revision, also reported by traders, means that as of March importers are able to receive a monthly subsidy if cargoes are loaded by the end of the month, unlike previously when ships had to arrive in Morocco by the month’s end.

Encouraging shipments from the Black Sea region, which includes Russia and Ukraine, was “one of the reasons” for adjusting the import subsidy terms, the official told Reuters.

The change could increase competition in a Moroccan import market dominated by wheat from France and other relatively nearby suppliers in the European Union.

Morocco has stepped up imports after a drought-hit harvest last year, and has overtaken Algeria as the top export destination for EU wheat in the 2022-23 season.

Like other wheat importers, it faced record prices last year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine upended global grain trade, and the country is also experiencing wider food inflation because of its drought and other issues such as fertilizer costs.

French traders said the change should not have a big immediate impact as ONICL had separately maintained a lower subsidy rate for Russian and Ukrainian wheat compared with imports of other origins like EU supplies.

But it could lead merchants to source more cargoes from EU countries on the Black Sea, like Romania, and make shipments from Ukraine and Russia more feasible in future, particularly if war disruption there eases, they said.

“There’s a mixed feeling with the news about the date of loading,” a French trader said. “But the EU still remains in pole position on the Moroccan market.”

Traders have reported large sales of French and northern European wheat in the past week for March shipment to Morocco.

Canadian wheat exports to Morocco are primarily durum, in which the country is currently Canada’s third-biggest export customer after Italy and Algeria.

As of the end of January, according to the Canadian Grain Commission, licensed facilities have exported about 344,300 tonnes of Canadian durum and 11,000 tonnes of other Canadian wheat to Morocco so far in the 2022-23 crop year, compared to 355,900 and 5,500 at the same point in 2021-22.

Attention is turning to Morocco’s 2023 grain harvest to see if earlier drought will affect yields again and maintain high import requirements next season.

French traders said grain firms had been informed the import subsidies will be offered till the end of May, suggesting Morocco will then close its import window to focus on its local crop.

However, Morocco usually does not confirm the end of its import campaign until harvest prospects become clearer around April.

— Reporting for Reuters by Ahmed Eljechtimi in Rabat and Gus Trompiz in Paris. Includes files from Glacier FarmMedia Network staff.

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The farmers parked tractors on a national highway near the town of Larissa in central Greece, where they faced off with police.

Kostas Tzelas, head of the Karditsa agricultural association, said the rising prices for fuel and electricity had increased production costs by 50 per cent.

“They don’t solve the basic problems that we have to maintain our farms and villages,” Tzelas said. “We ask for substantial measures that will give a real solution to our problems.”

Greece has spent about 1.7 billion euros (C$2.48 billion) subsidizing power bills for farmers, households and businesses to help them with rising energy prices.

High energy costs have been the main driver of inflation, which accelerated to 5.1 per cent in December, the highest in the country in 11 years.

Tzelas, speaking at the rally outside Larissa, the largest city of Greece’s central agricultural heartland, said: “That is why we are out on the streets, the countryside will become deserted, villages will be deserted, people will not be able to cultivate and we will no longer be able to live in our villages.”

Earlier on Friday, the government unveiled an additional 170 million euros in financial aid for the agriculture sector.

Agriculture Minister Spilios Livanos said in a televised statement that despite its tight finances, Greece had offered one billion euros in aid to farmers last year.

“At this difficult point of multiple major outside crises, we’re standing by our producers,” he said.

The package includes subsidies to cover 80 per cent of the additional costs farmers face on their power bills from August up to December and half of this cost for January and February.

A sales tax on fertilizers will be cut by 46 per cent to 13 per cent.

Farmers, who said the latest measures are not enough, have staged several protests in the past over social security laws and pension contributions.

The farm sector accounts for a small part of Greece’s output, but it employs hundreds of thousands of people, most of them seasonal workers.

— Reporting for Reuters by Alexandros Avramidis; writing by Angeliki Koutantou.

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