Spanish farmers blockade roads with burning tyres and tractors

On the second day of their protests, the Spanish farmers blocked the main entrance to the port of Castellon in the eastern region of Valencia while police agents watched from close by. More than a dozen big roads were blocked across Spain on Wednesday morning, traffic authorities said.

Spanish farmers blocked major roads with tractors and burning tyres on Wednesday, disrupting access to port terminals as anger spreads in Europe's countryside against high costs, bureaucracy and competition from outside the European Union. On the second day of their protests, the Spanish farmers blocked the main entrance to the port of Castellon in the eastern region of Valencia while police agents watched from close by.

More than a dozen big roads were blocked across Spain on Wednesday morning, traffic authorities said. Several convoys of tractors were converging on Barcelona and planned to enter the city centre to meet local authorities. Farmers across Europe, including in Germany, France and Belgium, have been holding protests, some of which have turned violent.

They say EU rules to protect the environment make them less competitive than farmers in other regions such as Latin America and the rest of Europe. They also complain against what they say are increasingly obscure bureaucratic measures. "It is totally unfair competition," citrus farmer Felipe Domenech, 55, told Reuters at the gates of the port in Castellon. "If fruit comes from abroad it should enter under the same conditions." Union leader Unai Sordo on Tuesday described the farmers protesting as businessmen, not workers, but said that did not undermine the legitimacy of their demands.

"They are right in some demands and less right in others," he told reporters. The protests prompted the Spanish government to distribute an additional 269 million-euro ($290-million) subsidy for as many as 140,000 farmers and for the European Commission, the EU executive, to scrap a plan to halve pesticide use in the bloc. ($1 = 0.9285 euros)