Rising energy costs are sparking unrest in parts of Europe, with Spain deploying more than 23,000 police officers amid a truck drivers’ strike on Friday, while farmers in France and Greece disrupted traffic with their protests.
Russia’s war in Ukraine has sent oil and natural gas costs soaring in Europe, leading to record inflation and making the cost of farmers and truck drivers fueling equipment and vehicles, buying fertilizer, or keeping up with other costs higher than ever. In Europe, which relies on Russian oil and natural gas, the war has exacerbated an energy supply crisis that has pushed up costs for households and businesses for months.
A group of self-employed Spanish truck drivers stopped working days ago due to rising fuel prices and other grievances, and that strike has turned into attacks with most drivers continuing to work. Police in patrol cars and helicopters accompanied convoys of trucks along highways and stopped protesters on Friday, seeking to ensure products such as dairy and cement continued to move as some sectors reported supply problems on the fifth day of the strike.
National media reported that protesters threw burning tires on a highway overnight in northwestern Spain. The Ministry of Interior said that the police arrested six people and subjected 34 others to investigation.
The striking truck drivers were also accused of throwing stones at trucks still running this week, tearing up cargo fabrics, puncturing truck tires, and threatening working drivers with violence.
Roads in France were closed in protest
In France, which has seen scattered protests this week against rising fuel prices, a caravan of about 20 farmers protested their tractors in the western Brittany region on Friday by driving slowly on the highway and closing a traffic circle to draw attention to their plight.
French road transport workers and fishing crews have set up makeshift barricades in recent days, using their vehicles and burning boards to block roads.
Truck drivers also roamed the streets of Berlin and other German cities on Friday, honking their car horns in protest against the rise in fuel prices.
Meanwhile, hundreds of protesting farmers blocked traffic in central Athens to demand that the government grant them additional concessions to cope with high energy costs. The demonstrators, carrying vegetables and black flags, some on tractors, gathered outside the Ministry of Agriculture and intended to head to Parliament in the center of the capital.
In Spain, the government repeated its allegations that far-right sympathizers are inciting a strike there.
Finance Minister Maria Jesus Montero told reporters that the strike amounts to “blackmail exploited by the far right to prevent the distribution of products and food.”
The striking truck drivers deny their links to the far right. In a statement issued late Thursday on their website, they said the government is “trying to criminalize and ideologically label a sector that only wants to make a living from its work and feels excluded and disrespected by the country’s leaders.”
The Land Transport Defense Platform, which called for the strike, says the strike began spontaneously in 2008. Its website says the strike was organized by six truck drivers in the Galicia region of northwestern Spain who were dissatisfied with national trucking associations.
The group is not affiliated with larger national trucking or road transport associations, and does not sit at the sector’s negotiating table with the government. The group did not immediately respond to a question about the number of its members.
Companies warn of supply and distribution problems
However, self-employed truck drivers are flexing their economic muscle by going on strike, and are using the strike to pressure the government to give in to their demands on a range of issues.
Companies in the cement, mining and dairy sectors were among those warning of low inventories or having trouble distributing their goods.
“Providing food and basic services is not easy,” said Agriculture Minister Luis Planas. “It is a constitutional issue of freedom of movement.”
Self-employed truck drivers say that the money they receive for transporting loads does not cover their costs, which have risen with the rise in fuel prices. They also claim that major distribution companies engage in unfair competition, driving down freight rates, and demand better working conditions, including retirement at age 60.
With gas prices at record levels, Canadians are being warned to prepare for higher costs for groceries, electronics and other consumer purchases.
The Spanish government says it plans to take action against rising energy and fuel prices later this month, as other governments across Europe have done as higher energy prices drive up consumer prices.
The unrest comes as the prime ministers of Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece met on Friday to call for an urgent EU-wide response to the energy crisis at next week’s European Council meeting in Brussels.
The Spanish government said it wants to postpone further action on energy prices until it sees what Europe can agree to.
