Windows smashed and stones hurled at police firing teargas as more than 1,000 people travel from Crete to protest against tax hikes

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Farmers who travelled to Athens from Crete have clashed with riot police in the latest unrest on the streets of the Greek capital, prompted by the government’s austerity policies.

The confrontation occurred outside the agriculture ministry, where farmers wielding staffs engaged with police firing teargas to prevent them from entering the building.

More than 1,100 stockbreeders and farmers arrived on overnight ferries in the early hours of Wednesday, to protest against increases in tax and social security contributions demanded by the creditors keeping Greece afloat.

Footage showed the farmers, many wearing black bandanas, smashing the windows of riot vans with shepherds’ staffs, setting fire to rubbish bins and hurling rocks and stones.

When the agriculture minister, Evangelos Apostolou, initially refused to meet a 45-member delegation representing protesters, anger peaked. “Dialogue is one thing, thuggery quite another,” the minister said, before attempts at further talks also foundered.

Greek farmers, long perceived to be the privileged recipients of generous EU funds, have historically been exempt from taxation.

However, the barrage of cuts and increases in the price of everything from fuel to fertilisers will hit them hard. Tax rates are expected to reach 26%, while pensions are being cut by as much as 22% by 2022.

Prof George Pagoulatos, who teaches European politics and economy at the University of Athens, said: “Farmers, in many ways, are a classic example of one of Greece’s protected groups.

“In certain rural constituencies, like Crete, they are also electorally very influential.”



But protesters say they are determined to ensure that Alexis Tsipras’s leftist-led administration reverses measures they claim threaten their survival.

The government is seeking to complete bailout talks over controversial income and spending cuts with visiting inspectors representing Greece’s international creditors. The country is due to make debt repayments of €7bn (£6bn) in July and faces the prospect of default if the bailout review is not completed.



“We have come to ensure the victory of farmers and to have results,” said Yannis Psarakis, a farmer from Kyparissi, outside Crete’s main city of Heraklion. “We want to have them take back everything they have encumbered us with. To us, it seems like the powers that be have looted everything.”

Similar clashes took place in Thessaloniki, where Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, was taunted by protesters and asked if he could “survive on a pension of €400 a month”.