ABD0005_20240203 – FRANKFURT/MAIN – GERMANY: 02/02/2024, Hesse, Frankfurt/Main: Tractors and others with sign “The agricultural class is a class of honor, it feeds the city, maintains the country. It is the pioneer of the time and will remain like this forever” standing on a street near the airport. Farmers demonstrate with their tractors at Frankfurt Airport. According to a police spokesperson, the farmers went to the airport at around 6 am. A protest tour of the site is planned. Photo: Ardavan Safari/dpa +++ dpa-Bildfunk +++. – PHOTO: APA/dpa/Ardavan Safari
Photo by: APA/dpa/Ardavan Safari, Ardavan Safari
GLast week, farmers protested in the Czech Republic – including in southern Bohemia – against excessive bureaucracy, unfair EU agricultural policy and cheap food imports from Ukraine.
As Czech media reports, the protests are the result of a meeting between farmers' associations and EU Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski. The demands: compensation to farmers for complying with new environmental regulations, relief from bureaucracy, clarification of the subsidy system and better regulation of Ukrainian products entering the EU market. Farmers gathered symbolically in Czech cities and on the borders. Farmers in southern Bohemia also joined the nationwide protests.
A column of tractors set off from the Agra service site on the main road from Třeboň to Prague. It was accompanied by other agricultural machinery in Mláka. In České Budějovice, farmers gathered in front of the exhibition center.
According to media reports, the protest trips aim to draw attention to the fact that “the European Union's agricultural policy is unfair, unpredictable and incomprehensible”, according to the Chamber of Agriculture. “This leads to the gradual destruction of agricultural production in South Bohemia and the Czech Republic,” said the director of the South Bohemian District Chamber of Agriculture, Hana Št'astná. Around a thousand technical machines were involved in the farmers' protest, which took place in eleven locations in the South Bohemian region. They say they wanted to avoid blocking roads for now.
Sources: www.jcted.cz, www.jindrichohradeckydenik.cz, www.novinky.cz