Gridlock as truckers protest fuel prices

TENS of thousands of truckers in Spain, France and Portugal yesterday stepped up protests against rising fuel prices, causing mayhem on highways and blocking border crossings.

Tailbacks built up around major cities and on the French-Spanish border as French fishermen in Mediterranean ports ended their three-week strike over the spiralling cost of fuel.

Spain’s second-largest hauliers’ union, Fenadismer, which claims to represent 70,000 out of Spain’s 380,000 truck drivers, launched an open-ended strike yesterday.

Yesterday’s talks between the hauliers and the government ended in failure, Fenadismer said.

“Fenadismer will maintain its national strike” as the government’s proposals were “insufficient”“, it said.

Trucks jammed several main highways including at the frontier with France, according to traffic officials, who reported massive snarls in Madrid and Valencia.

A Spanish truckers’ group calling itself the Platform for the Defence of the Transport Sector, who say they speak for 50,000 truckers, walked off the job last week. They have threatened to disrupt the opening this weekend of the International Exposition in Zaragosa.

The conservative Spanish newspaper ABC said the aim of the strikers was to block oil supplies from refineries and stocks at retail markets this week.

French truckers staged fresh protests near the Spanish border and in the south-west.

Several trucks from the southern city of Perpignan disrupted traffic at border posts, preventing trucks from crossing and causing a 10km tailback on both sides of the border. Private cars were allowed through.

Some 200 trucks converged on the four main motorways leading into Bordeaux yesterday, causing 30km tailbacks in and around the city.

Portugal’s Transport Minister, Mario Lino, was to meet with representatives of road transport associations yesterday in a bid to end the strike.

According to police, trucks parked at petrol pumps were stoned overnight or while they were on the road.

The strikers also blocked entrances to several factories.

However, French fishermen from Mediterranean ports yesterday ended a three-week strike ahead of a key meeting of EU fisheries ministers on June 23-24.

Marine diesel prices have leapt by about 30% since the start of 2008, triggering protests in EU ports as well as warnings that fishing boat owners face bankruptcy without higher subsidies.