Farmers, many on tractors, started gathering before midday in Plaza Colón waving flags and blowing horns to the sound of loud music, before marching down Paseo de la Castellana, one of Madrid’s main avenues, to the Agriculture Ministry.
Organizers said the EU agreement with Mercosur will harm the agricultural sector by allowing an influx of goods from countries with lower health and environmental guarantees.
“We are not against competition,” said Justo Ortiz Trapote, a farmer from the Castilla y León region and member of the Unaspi farmers’ group, who arrived in Madrid on a bus chartered for the protest. Farmers aren’t seeking a monopoly, he said, but “we want food products produced in other countries to be produced under the same conditions that are required of us.”
The EU and the Mercosur group of South American nations inked a deal in mid-January, more than two decades after negotiations started. The agreement has faced pushback from farmers in several countries as well as politicians, with the EU parliament having voted to get a legal review of the agreement, which is still pending.
Although it was the first time protesters reached Madrid since the agreement was signed, demonstrations have been occurring since the start of the year from France to Poland.
In Spain, farmer protests have become politically charged, with far-right nationalist party Vox having made large inroads among farmers in recent years by denouncing that the country’s largest parties - the governing Socialists and the conservative People’s Party - aren’t doing enough for the agricultural sector.
“We have no other choice but to give it our all now that we are at our last chance and we see some light at the end of the tunnel,” Trapote said smiling, waving a flag.