Portuguese farmers used tractors to block at least three roads linking Portugal to Spain on Thursday, joining Europe-wide protests over a range of grievances, from cheaper imports to insufficient state aid and bureaucracy. The government on Wednesday announced emergency aid worth 500 million euros for farmers to try to avoid the kind of mass protests causing disruption in France and Brussels, but a small group of farmers, feeling under-represented in public discussion on the issue, contacted each other on social media and decided to take action. Starting at dawn hundreds of farmers with tractors and other vehicles made their way slowly to the four main crossing points to neighbouring Spain.
Portugal's caretaker government announced on Wednesday an emergency aid package worth 500 million euros ($543 million) for farmers as it tries to avoid the kind of mass protests causing disruption in France and elsewhere across Europe. As part of the package, Agriculture Minister Maria do Ceu Antunes announced a 55% reduction in the tax on agricultural diesel fuel and an extra 120 million euros to support organic agriculture and mixed farming. Some 200 million euros were to mitigate the impact of a long-running drought impact on farmers' income.
Leaders of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) described mass nationwide protests against the party as "a distraction" and a desperate "last effort" to score political points before key state elections in eastern Germany later this year. AfD co-chairwoman Alice Weidel argued on Monday that the anti-immigrant party was being "defamed and slandered," but vowed that the protests and negative press coverage "will not harm us in the long run, it will make us stronger." Her co-chairman, Tino C
Around 100,000 demonstrators took to the street of Duesseldorf in western Germany on Saturday to protest against right-wing extremism, according to police estimates.
More than 40% of German nationals could imagine their participation in protests against policies of the government of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a poll conducted by the Institute for New Social Answers (INSA) for German newspaper Bild showed on Tuesday.