Italy defended farmers long before the protests - Meloni

(ANSA) - ROME, FEB 7 - Italy was defending farmers and the agricultural sector long before the current tractor protests by renegotiating its EU-funded post-Covid national recovery and resilience plan (NRRP) to free up more funding, Premier Giorgia Meloni said on Wednesday.
    Through renegotiation of the NRRP "we have freed up 3 billion euro for farms, because long before there were protests and people took to the streets, this government was defending the agricultural sector from some overly ideological choices that risked pursuing the green transition and risking industrial diversification," said Meloni at the signing in L'Aquila of the Cohesion and Development Agreement between the government and the Abruzzo region.
    In Italy farmers in tractors have been protesting up and down the country against European and national agricultural and environmental policies and general hardship, holding up traffic on major arteries and bringing cars to a standstill in many cities.
    Protests are planned in Rome imminently. (ANSA).