Fuel Protest Begins to Pinch in Spain
MADRID — The customer ordered a tortilla — a traditional Spanish potato omelet — but Graciela Gómez Torea, owner of the San Telmo cafeteria in Madrid, sadly shook her head.
Blame it on the truckers, she seemed to say.
On Monday, tens of thousands of Spanish truck-drivers went on strike to protest high fuel prices and by Tuesday the escalating stoppage began severing the nation’s supply lines to supermarkets, gas stations and even small cafeterias like those of Ms. Gomez Torea.
So, she explained to her customer, there wouldn’t be any tortillas until the strike was over. And no thick hot chocolate either. Pork and beef, she added, would be off the menu in a few days.
“It’s horrible,” Ms. Gómez Torea said. “I have the chocolate delivered every day from Barcelona, the tortilla comes from Galicia, the central market is surrounded by strikers and my meat distributor says she is running out. If this continues, I won’t have anything left to serve my costumers.”
Like thousands of others, Ms. Gómez Torea had sensed what would happen during the truckers’ strike. So, Monday night, she stockpiled milk to serve in her coffee. “I have the trunk of my car filled with cartons of milk,” she said. “The market was packed like on a Saturday.”
In many parts of the country, Spaniards felt the pinch in different ways. Nearly half of the gasoline stations in the northern province of Catalonia were out of fuel as of Tuesday morning, and the regional government sent out an emergency convoy of 20 trucks to replenish their tanks.
Around major cities, traffic continued Tuesday to crawl behind the so-called “snail protests” of slow-moving trucks.
Television news reports showed ships in the Balearic Islands marooned in port for lack of fuel and cargo. In the northern province of Galicia and southern ports of Andalucía, the truckers’ strike, coupled with a fishing strike, left docks and fish stalls barren. Wholesale markets were surrounded by protesters. And shoppers were hoarding staples.
“The main ones hurt are the drivers themselves, who don’t earn anything each day of the strike,” said Jorge Somoza, a representative of one of two national groups to call the stoppage. “Nobody likes it.”
Negotiations with the government were continuing, he said.
So far the administration of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has offered a package of measures to ease the impact of higher fuel prices on small businesses, including lower social security contributions and 55 million euros in subsidies to older truckers who choose to abandon the industry. But Mr. Somoza said the truckers consider these measures insufficient.
They are seeking government regulations guaranteeing a minimum price for their services, above fuel costs.
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