Greek Government Threatens Farmers with Police Repression, Criminal Charges for Highway Blockades

This article was published on January 9, 2026, at 1:55 a.m. EST and was updated at 2:52 p.m. EST with the information on the temporary opening of the roads and highways blockaded by farmers.

By Argiris Malapanis

KALAMATA, Greece, January 9, 2026 — “We’ve taken to the streets for 35 days now because the government won’t listen to our just demands,” said Kostas Apostolopoulos in a January 6 interview outside this city on the southern part of the Greek mainland. “We don’t intend to give up. It’s a struggle for survival.”

Apostolopoulos, an olive grower and olive oil producer, is the president of the Agricultural Association of Chandrinou, a mountain village near the city of Pylos, about 40 km (25 miles) west of Kalamata. He spoke to World-Outlook at the Thouria interchange of the Kalamata-Athens national highway, which farmers have blockaded for several weeks.

The protests here are part of a nationwide revolt by farmers and livestock breeders that began November 30 — the largest such mobilizations in Greece in over a decade. For six weeks, agricultural producers have been blockading highways, roads, border crossings, and some ports and airports.

After nationwide conferences on January 4 and 7 of representatives of agricultural producers in Nikea, outside the city of Larissa in central Greece, farmers decided to escalate their protests since the government has not shown willingness to meet the farmers even part way.

“Farmers across Greece escalated protests on Thursday [January 8] with coordinated 48-hour blockades of major highways, junctions and border crossings, disrupting domestic travel and cross-border trade after talks with the government on Wednesday [January 7] failed to satisfy their demands,” the conservative daily Kathimerini reported on January 8.

“From early morning, tractors and heavy vehicles were positioned on key transport arteries linking the capital with northern and western Greece. One of the most critical closures came on the Athens-Lamia national highway near the town of Kastro in Viotia, where traffic in both directions was halted shortly before 11 a.m. Police diverted vehicles onto secondary roads, causing long delays for drivers traveling between Athens and central and northern regions.”

Greek gov’t threatens farmers with repression, criminal charges

The government led by Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has announced it has directed police forces to take measures to re-open major highways. It has also asked state prosecutors to issue arrest warrants and file criminal charges against protest leaders. These announcements indicate that attempts at widespread repression may be coming.

On the morning of January 9, for example, farmers had surrounded with their tractors the courthouse in Kalamata, where several of their colleagues were facing charges for blockading the national highway. The accused included Dimitris Biris interviewed in this article.

At the same time, state-controlled TV and radio, as well as the conservative press, have been announcing that farmers blockading highways in at least 14 of the 100 blockades or organizing sites across the country have expressed willingness to open the roads and negotiate directly with the government. But none of these media have produced live interviews or offered any names of such farmers ready to break ranks with their colleagues.

In repeated attempts to minimize popular support, the police often close off highways one or two exits before and after farmers’ blockades and divert traffic through long detours, which I had a chance to witness during recent trips between Kalamata and Athens. The police actions are aimed at minimizing contact of motorists with protesting farmers and maximizing the inconvenience to drivers so officials can blame agricultural producers for the added trouble in daily life.

To counter such divide-and-conquer tactics, farmers made sure during the end-of-the-year holidays to let civilian traffic through blockades; they even opened tolls so drivers could cross them for free.

During the escalation of the protests that started this morning, farmers blockading border crossings are letting busses and private cars go through but are stopping commercial freight trucks, according to Efimerida ton Syntakton (Editors’ Newspaper, or EfSyn), one of the country’s main dailies.

The message of the latest conferences of protesting farmers is a determined “we won’t back down,” EfSyn reported on January 8.

“The government is using a series of tactics, with the main aim of cajoling the farmers off the blockades and forcing them to end their mass and dynamic mobilizations,” EfSyn noted. “On top of the political price of the mobilizations, the government is afraid a worse outcome if the rural population (that has society’s backing) sustains its just struggle.”

The government has offered to meet with farmers’ representatives on January 13 to negotiate on their demands, on the condition they end the blockades, EfSyn reported. The farmers have responded, “Yes to talks, but with our tractors on the streets,” EfSyn said.

By the evening of January 9, farmers announced that they were opening to traffic most highways and bypass roads they have been blockading, but they are keeping tractors and other equipment at the sites they are already located in case the next round of talks with the government yields no progress in meeting their main demands. Representatives of agricultural associations are holding a nationwide conference on January 10, in preparation for meeting with the prime minister and members of his administration on January 13.

Demands of agricultural producers

Farmers are pressing for relief from the squeeze of low producer prices on the one hand and high costs of fuel, seeds, fertilizers, and equipment on the other.

“This year, there was a shortfall in olive oil production, but despite the reduced supply of extra virgin olive oil, prices we get are now about €4 per kilo [~ $2.2/lb.], which is below the cost of production,” explained Apostolopoulos. “At the same time, you pay €10 to €15 euros per kilo [~ $5.5 to $8/lb.] for high quality olive oil at the supermarket shelf.”

In addition, farmers are demanding the immediate release of more than €600 million ($700 million) in European Union (EU) farm subsidies that have been frozen for months after a major scandal in which a small number of state employees and their accomplices pilfered millions from these funds, prompting an EU investigation.

Farmers are also pressing for compensation for an ongoing and devastating goat and sheep pox outbreak that has led to a mass culling of herds over the last year. The government has not taken measures to minimize the epidemic’s spread, such as providing the necessary vaccines, or adequately compensating the affected producers.

“The question for us is what will happen with the vaccines and what will happen with the people who lost their herds since Daniel [the 2023 rainstorm that flooded central Greece, devastating farm communities], and from the sheep and goat pox,” Argiris Baïraktaris told EfSyn on January 7. “Since 2023, we have lost 700,000 animals. From what we heard [from the prime minister’s office], it’s as if we don’t exist for the Greek government.”

Baïraktaris is president of the agricultural association in Tyrnavos, near the city of Larissa in central Greece, and a member of the board of directors of the Hellenic Livestock Association.

The farmers’ demands include minimum prices that cover the cost of production, abolition of state taxes at the pump on fuel used for farming, an agricultural electricity rate of 7 cents per kilowatt-hour, and radical reform of the Greek Institute of Agricultural Insurance (known as ELGA, its acronym in Greek) to guarantee 100% compensation for disasters like the pox outbreak.

“Farmers are forced to pay high insurance premiums to ELGA, in order to be eligible for any subsidies, but often get little to no compensation, and the subsidies get reduced every year,” explained Nikos Panayiotopoulos. He is another olive oil producer, who spoke to World-Outlook in a January 3 interview at Kertizeika, a small agricultural community near Pyrgos, the capital of Ilias province, in western Peloponnese.

“Over the last five years, the subsidies I have received for the same production of olive oil have been slashed by 30% — from €1.20 to €0.80 per tree,” Panayiotopoulos added [€1 ~ $1.20].

Widespread popular support

Despite traffic delays and other inconveniences caused by highway and road blockades, there are many indications that most people across the country are supportive of the farmers’ revolt.

Before the Christmas holidays, for example, high school students from Messini and other nearby towns would cut classes, often with backing from their teachers, to visit the farmers blockading the highway at the Thouria interchange to offer their solidarity. Their support included bringing food and taking selfies with the farmers guarding the tractors, bulldozers, trucks and other equipment, and posting the photos on social media.

Trade unions and college students have organized solidarity rallies across the country. Fishermen have joined farmers in coordinated symbolic blockades at several ports.

During my January 6 visit at the Thouria interchange, I witnessed most motorists driving through the nearby bypass waiving and honking their horns in support of the protesting farmers.

“Our demands affect most of society, because, as we have seen, most of Greece faces the same problems,” Dimitris Biris told World-Outlook in the January 6 interview at the blockade of the Thouria interchange. Biris, from nearby Messini, is a producer of clover, widely used as a high-quality forage for livestock and a great source of protein for animals.

Biris and Apostolopoulos emphasized that the government’s efforts to divide the protesting agricultural producers, and dampen popular support for their struggle, have largely failed.

“The blockades remain coordinated as one fist, from [river] Evros [at the northeastern border with Turkey] to Crete, [the country’s southernmost island],” Apostolopoulos said. “The government has gone out of its way to divide us, to slander us. They started by claiming we don’t have clear or reasonable demands. But we made our demands crystal clear, and the media has been forced to publicize them in detail,” he explained.

“Then they started claiming our protests are led by certain political parties,” Apostolopoulos continued. “But we have shown that our struggle is not led by any political party. These are blockades by farmers, no one else is behind this.“

“Most of society is supporting us, because people face similar issues, like low wages that make it very hard for them to afford food, rent, and other basics,” Biris added. “They see that farmers have revolted and are fighting for just demands, that they are fighting for them too, for all working people.”

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