and making it ever more expensive for farmers and truckers to fuel their equipment and vehicles, afford fertilizer or keep up with other costs. In Europe, which is dependent on Russian oil and natural gas, the war worsened an energy supply crunch that has driven up costs for households and businesses for months.
In France, which has seen scattered protests this week against soaring fuel prices, a convoy of about 20 farmers on their tractors in the western Brittany region protested Friday by driving slowly down a highway and blockading a traffic circle, creating tailbacks to draw attention to their plight. Meanwhile, hundreds of protesting farmers blocked traffi c in central Athens to demand the government grant them additional concessions to cope with high energy costs. Holding up vegetables and black flags, the protesters, some on tractors, gathered outside the Farm Ministry and planned to head to parliament in the center of the capital.
The Platform for the Defense of the Road Transport Sector, which called the strike, says it emerged spontaneously in 2008. It was created by six truckers in Spain’s northwest Galicia region who were disaffected with national trucking associations, its website says. “The provision of food and basic services is not a trivial matter,” Farm Minister Luis Planas said. “It’s a constitutional issue which has to do with freedom of movement.”