Julio García-Aquí Europa
French winegrowers yesterday blocked traffic at the Le Boulou tollbooth, southern France, and have blocked Spanish trucks and spilled the cargo they were transporting, to protest against imports of Spanish wine.
Winegrowers in the south of France have called for various demonstrations to demand economic efforts to help the regional wine industry, which has endured a difficult harvest amid difficult weather conditions.
After a few years, winegrowers can no longer make their farms profitable and assure that they are not getting an adequate response from the French Government to solve the problems of viticulture in the south of the country.
The Spanish Government has condemned these acts by French winegrowers of destruction of shipments of tomato, wine and cava from Spain and highlights that this blockade threatens the free circulation of goods within the European Union.
Given this situation, the Ministry of Agriculture has contacted the French authorities to put a stop to an action that “harms” those affected and to restore normality so that these incidents are not reproduced.
For their part, the Mossos d’Esquadra have collaborated with the French Gendarmerie and have diverted heavy vehicles to La Jonquera (Girona), although the Spanish Confederation of Freight Transport (CETM) considers that this action is “insufficient.”
The Coordinator of Farmers and Livestock Organizations (COAG) has called for “severe” sanctions against the French Government and against the farmers who have attacked the Spanish trucks.
Furthermore, COAG has demanded that the European Union guarantee “effectively and forcefully” the free circulation of Spanish agricultural production in French territory and demands that the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food make a formal complaint to the French government for its apathy. in the face of recurring attacks on our products.