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.
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.
“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.