SPPK Joins EU Farmers in Protest Against Mercosur Agreement with Tractor... (2)

Bratislava, February 25 (TASR) - The Slovak Agricultural and Food Chamber (SPPK) will join the protest of Czech and other EU farmers against the Mercosur trade agreement on Thursday (February 27) by participating in a tractor protest at the Hodonin-Holic crossing point on the Czech-Slovak border to express opposition to the EU's trade barrier reductions with Latin American countries in the agri-food sector, SPPK announced on Tuesday. "We would like to apologise in advance to all motorists who will be affected by the traffic restrictions on Thursday. However, we must firmly and respectfully voice, on behalf of all our consumers, that we are concerned about the low-quality food that will be imported into the EU by signing the Mercosur agreement. We're joining the protest of our Czech colleagues as well as farmers from other EU countries, and we will symbolically meet at the common border crossing, through which food from outside the EU flows into our countries," said SPPK head Andrej Gajdos. A convoy of agricultural machinery will set off for the protest on Thursday morning at 9.00 a.m. from Radosovce (Trnava region) and, escorted by the police, will head to the border. Farmers stated that antibiotics, unauthorised hormonal substances, and banned meat-and-bone meal are used in agriculture in Latin American countries. Thus, by signing the Mercosur agreement and removing or easing tariff barriers, these risky products will have a greater access to European consumers. More imports into the EU are expected, particularly beef, poultry and pig meat, as well as sugar and honey. If the Mercosur agreement were to enter into force definitively, it would create the largest free trade area in the world, with more than 780 million people. "On the one hand, we understand the broader importance of the Mercosur agreement for the European and Slovak economies. On the other hand, we aren't indifferent to what food products we will be buying from Latin America for our families if they begin to be massively imported into stores. That is why with our protest on Thursday we want to appeal to politicians to push for a milder Mercosur and in the further approval process at the level of member countries, the European Parliament, and the EU Council, to advocate for the exclusion of the agri-food chapter from the Mercosur agreement," added Gajdos. lin/mcs