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.
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