Greek farmers extend roadblocks

Greek farmers yesterday threw up more roadblocks in the centre and north of the country in a bid for state funds which has cornered the country's cash-strapped government and fuelled anger in neighbouring Bulgaria.

Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov asked the European Commission on Tuesday to help end the protests after farmers blocked the main border crossings at Kulata-Promahon and Ilinden-Exohi, stranding dozens of lorries on either side.

Mr Borisov's press office said the premier complained to EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso that the "unacceptable" blocking of an internal EU border breached "basic rights and freedoms of other EU citizens as well the principles of the common EU market."

Mr Borisov recalled that similar protests last year cost Bulgarian hauliers €10 million. Yesterday tractors blocked roads around Greece's second city of Thessaloniki and nearby Kavala as well as the motorway to Turkey.

However border crossings with Turkey at Evros, Kipi and Ormenio were unaffected in the morning, police said.

Those linking Greece to Macedonia and Albania, at Evzonon and Doiranis, and Krystallopigis were open throughout the night.

More roadblocks also went up in the central Thessaly et Beotia regions, in the Peloponnesus peninsula and the southern island of Crete.

Demanding hundreds of thousands of euros in state support to counterbalance low produce prices, farmers began setting up roadblocks in the Thessaly region in the country's centre and in East Macedonia in the north at the weekend.

The farmers are seeking financial assistance because of a drop in prices for products including wheat, cotton and milk.

They are also asking for price cuts on fertilisers, pharmaceutical products and seeds, a rebate on the price of electricity and petrol, and a three-year freeze on their debts to the Greek Agricultural Bank.

But the recently elected Socialist government, which is already labouring to fix the country's ailing national finances under pressure from Brussels, says it gave financial aid to farmers last month and could afford no more.

Katerina Batzelis, minister of rural development and food, has invited the farmer unions to roundtable talks on Monday and Tuesday.

Greece is in recession and has been hit by a major financial crisis, with debt constituting 113 per cent of gross domestic product.

Greek farmers protested at the same time last year for similar reasons, putting down roadblocks that lasted over two weeks.