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PROTESTS

MAP: Tractors return to Madrid as Spanish farmers’ protests continue

Tractors will once again convene in Madrid on Monday as Spain's agricultural protests continue, with traffic affected and road closures in the capital and around the country.

Published: 26 February 2024 10:29 CET
MAP: Tractors return to Madrid as Spanish farmers' protests continue
Demonstrators on their tractors leave the Plaza de la Independencia in Madrid. Photo: OSCAR DEL POZO/AFP.

As many as one hundred tractors and thousands of demonstrators are expected in Madrid on Monday as Spain’s agricultural protests continue. The unhappy farmers, who will be coming to the capital from across the country, will pass through Madrid city centre as part of wider calls for a relaxation of green policies, state aid to help with rising production costs, and increased protections against non-EU products undercutting them, among other demands.

READ ALSO: EXPLAINED: Why are farmers in Spain protesting?

The tractor convoy is scheduled to leave from the Puente de Arganda at 09.00am on Monday and enter the capital via the N-3 motorway, Avenida del Mediterráneo, Ciudad de Barcelona, before convening at Paseo de Infanta Isabel, in front of the Ministry of Agriculture building.

The protest, the date of which was chosen to coincide with a meeting of the EU Council of Agriculture Ministers in Brussels, will then begin at 11.00 am, leaving from the Ministry of Agriculture along the Paseo del Prado before heading via Recoletos and Castellana and finally reaching the European Commission Office on Plaza de la Castellana in the Salamanca neighbourhood.

According to traffic updates from Spain’s Dirección General de Tráfico (DGT) traffic is already slow at the M-300 entrance in La Poveda, and access may be affected at Arganda del Rey via the M-23, M-203 and M-208.

There are also some road closures across the rest of Spain on Monday as the protests continue, including reports of slow traffic this morning in Castilla y León, the Valencian Community, and Andalusia, specifically in the Cádiz area round A-7 and N-357 exits at Algeciras.

Road closures and affected traffic areas on Monday 26th February (as of 10:00am)

READ ALSO: How long will the farmers’ roadblocks in Spain last?

Spain’s agricultural protests are scheduled to continue for at least another month, with action provisionally scheduled in La Palma, Granada, and Cádiz through March, April, and May.

Protest calendar

26th February: Madrid
27th February: Córdoba
29th February: Málaga
1st March: La Palma
14th March: Granada
21st March: Granada
21st March: Cádiz
5th April: Granada
16th April: Granada
27th April: Granada
30th April: Granada
7th May: Granada
14th May: Granada
21st May: Granada
28th May: Granada

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PROTESTS

Spanish farmers stage fresh protests in Madrid

Hundreds of farmers paraded through the Spanish capital on foot and by tractor on Sunday in the latest protest over the crisis facing the agricultural sector.

Published: 17 March 2024 15:07 CET
Spanish farmers stage fresh protests in Madrid

The farmers marched from the Ministry of Ecological Transition to the Ministry of Agriculture after the European Union proposed legislative changes to drastically ease the environmental rules of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) Friday.

Rallied by their trade union, farmers carried banners proclaiming “We are not delinquents” to the sound of horns and whistles. One decorated his tractor with a mock guillotine.

READ ALSO: EXPLAINED: Why are farmers in Spain protesting?

“It is as if they want to cut off our necks,” said Marcos Baldominos explaining his guillotine.

“We are being suffocated by European rules,” the farmer from Pozo de Guadalajara, 50 kilometres (30 miles) east of Madrid, added.

Friday’s concessions in Brussels aimed to loosen compliance with some environment rules, EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said. While the move was welcomed by Spain’s left-wing government, some environmental NGOs criticised the measures.

“We are faced with a pile of bureaucratic rules that make us feel more like we are at an office than on a farm,” the trade union behind Sunday’s march, Union de Uniones, said with reference to requirements “that many small and medium-sized farms” cannot “cope with”.

Sunday marked the fourth demonstration in Madrid since the start of the wider European farm protest movement in mid-January.

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