“Yes” to dialogue with the government, “no” to bringing the tractors down to the capital, the farmers decided at the meeting of the Panhellenic Committee, which convened in Nikaia of Larissa and concluded shortly after 4:00 p.m. on Saturday.
At the nationwide meeting, farmers decided to take part in dialogue with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis next Tuesday and not to hold the rally they had been planning for the same day in Athens.
The Panhellenic Committee rejected the proposal to hold a rally in Athens, judging that at this particular moment such a mobilization would not add any substantial benefit to their struggle.
As they announced, during the meeting with the prime minister they will once again put all of their demands on the negotiating table and made it clear that their presence at the discussions does not imply any easing of mobilizations. “Our red line is the survival of farmers,” they noted characteristically, warning that if they are not satisfied with the meeting, they will respond dynamically afterward.
The agricultural machinery will not withdraw before there is a clear picture of the course of the negotiations, while new assemblies will follow immediately afterward, through which the continuation of the mobilizations will be determined.
“We will move to a general escalation of mobilizations if there are no solutions at the meeting with Kyriakos Mitsotakis,” said Kostas Anestidis, President of the Agricultural Association of Kymina, in statements after the end of the nationwide meeting.
Along the same lines were the statements of Socrates Aleiftiras, Vice President of the Federation of Farmers of Larissa, who said that dialogue will take place for the overall benefit of the agricultural sector and added that the Mercosur agreement is the nail in the coffin for the agricultural sector.
The representative of the Thiva roadblock even warned that, if necessary, the farmers will plow the asphalt.
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