PRAGUE, February 22./TASS/. Czech farmers have joined protests across Europe against the European Union's agricultural policy, Czech News Agency (CTK) reported.
The first farmers to join the protests come from the districts of Kutna Hora and Kolin in the central part of the country. They took to the region’s highways on about 100 agricultural vehicles, driving at a speed of 30 km/h and carrying picket signs demanding a review of EU policies that the farmers believe infringe on their interests.
"We realize that we will cause some traffic jams, but we are desperate because of what we are being fed [by the governing bodies] of Europe. This [instructions from EU governing bodies] makes life very difficult for us and we need to make this known in some way," the agency quoted the chairman of the Kolin Agrarian Chamber, Vojtech Ksirl, as saying.
Major protests across the Czech Republic are taking place from 10:00 a.m. (9:00 a.m. GMT) to noon (11:00 a.m. GMT). They join Thursday's pan-European rallies by farmers against the EU's agricultural policy. Farmers are demanding a revision of the Green Deal, an increase in subsidies, the scrapping of some bureaucratic procedures in the industry and a ban on duty-free imports of agricultural products from third countries, including Ukraine, which undermine their business.
National protests are organized by major farmers associations led by the Czech Agrarian Chamber. According to the organizers, more than 2,000 agricultural vehicles will be involved in the protests, many of which will take place on the Czech Republic borders with neighboring countries.
Meanwhile, the Czech Agrarian Chamber has informed that 3,000 agricultural vehicles are heading to the checkpoints on the country's land borders with Slovakia, Poland and Germany. Meetings with protesting farmers from these countries are being held there. Farmers blocked, in particular, the passage of vehicles across the border with Slovakia at the checkpoint near the town of Hodonin in the south-east of the country.