Source: AFP
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni met with Italian farmers’ unions on Friday after weeks of protests across the country and promised to reinstate a limited tax break.
Farmers have organized small demonstrations from Sicily to Turin, demanding action on a range of issues.
Their grievances range from the cost of fuel to European Union environmental regulations designed to mitigate climate change but which they say are harming their livelihoods.
Earlier on Friday, the protests reached central Rome, with tractors — including one green, one white and one red, Italy’s national colors — symbolically driving past the Colosseum.
Source: AFP
Meloni, who took office in October 2022 at the head of a nationalist government, has expressed his sympathy for farmers, criticizing the EU’s “ideological” rules.
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She says her government has already acted to support the industry, diverting an extra three billion euros ($3.2 billion) — for a total of eight billion — from Italy’s share of the EU’s post-Covid recovery fund.
At Friday’s round table with ministers and farming groups, including representatives of the protesters, he agreed to extend the income tax exemption for farmers that has been in effect since 2017.
But the extension will only be for those with low incomes.
“Severe Difficulty”
The government had originally planned to suspend the exemption all together. Meloni told the meeting that this was done because it was “unfair and particularly favored big companies”.
This limited version of the exemption will help “the most vulnerable”, a government source said.
The tractors in Rome on Friday were part of a group of more than 300 people who had been parked in the northern suburbs of the capital for several days, awaiting permission to enter the city.
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“EU policies are putting us in serious trouble,” Elia Fornai, a 26-year-old farmer from Tuscany, told AFP at the camp, where visiting journalists were treated to a barbecue of local produce.
“We don’t feel like protesting. We want to go home as soon as possible — but with new programs for a better future for agriculture.”
Italian farmers are not a homogeneous group. They have no clear leader.
But many complain about food imports from outside the EU not subject to the same regulations and want tax cuts, including on fuel.
Farmers across Europe have staged protests in recent weeks over shrinking incomes, rising costs and what they say are increasingly burdensome environmental rules imposed by the 27-nation EU.
The EU has pledged to be carbon neutral by 2050. Getting there requires massive adaptation by consumers and industry — including agriculture, which emits 11 percent of the bloc’s global warming emissions.
Source: AFP