Farmers disappointed after meeting with PM to decide on protest actions

The crucial meeting between protesting farmers and the prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis at Tuesday did not the fruits the two sides were expecting.

Farmers’ representatives told media that their demands have not been met and announced that their blockades, protest actions and demonstrations will continue.

Ahead of the meeting, Mitsotakis told them “I believe we can find common ground, taking into account your justified concerns.”

In his proposal regarding mainly the energy cost, the PM offered the farmers that they will be eligible for cheaper electricity for two years from April, a measure that will be partly financed from proceeds from renewables and carbon market credits.

After that period, electricity prices will be stabilized for a third of their power consumption for another eight years, starting in 2026. However, both measures require the consent and the cooperation of electricity suppliers.

Mitsotakis told farmers they had received more than 1 billion euros in compensation for crops damaged in natural disasters since 2019 and recalled Greece’s fiscal constraints.

The disappointed farmers will start taking the final decisions on how they will proceed as of tomorrow, Wednesday, representative Rizos Maroudas told media, right after the meeting with the PM.

“We will go back to our road blocks, we will inform our colleagues throughout Greece about what was discussed today, we will make the decisions in our blocks. We believe that the struggle must continue, that the blocs should be strengthened even more in order to satisfy to the maximum extent possible the demands for survival  the country’s agricultural movement has put forward all these days” underlined Rizos Maroudas from the floods-ridden Platykambos bloc by Larissa in Thessaly, central Greece.