Spain's truckers get gas price cut but some keep striking

Spain’s government and the country’s main trucking federations have reached an agreement on financial help for an industry hurt by high gas prices

MADRID -- Spain’s government and the country’s main trucking federations reached an agreement Friday on financial help for an industry hurt by high gas prices, but self-employed truckers said they would continue a 12-day strike.

Russia’s war in Ukraine has helped drive gas prices higher in Europe, making it more expensive for truckers to fuel up.

Also Friday, scores of farmers on tractors drove slowly along a main road near the Spanish capital of Madrid to protest the “brutal increase” in fuel prices and low prices they are still getting for farm produce. The Madrid region farmers also complained that the price of fertilizer, much of which in the past they say has come from Ukraine, has climbed around 300%.

After 12 hours of negotiations with truckers that ended after midnight, Spain's Socialist-led government announced it is discounting 0.20 euros per liter of gas (the equivalent of $.83 per gallon) for trucks as part of a package of measures worth more than 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion). A liter of gas for truckers currently costs around 1.80 euros (the equivalent of $7.50 a gallon).