Italian farmers protest at Sanremo music festival, while roadblocks continue in Bulgaria and Spain

Mirroring protests across Europe, farmers in Italy drove their tractors to the town of Flores, in Liguria overnight to protest at the Sanremo Song Festival.

Setting off from Melegnano, in the northern region of Lombardy on Wednesday evening they travelled around 240 kilometres at 40 km per hour, to protest at the televised festival.

The host and artistic director, Amadeus, said he would welcome farmers’ representatives at the Ariston Theatre.

Roadblocks continue in Bulgaria

In Bulgaria, farmers' protests and road blockages across the country continued for a third consecutive day after no consensus was reached in the negotiations with the government.

Over 100 tractors and more than 250 farmers and livestock breeders blocked the roundabout near the Plovdiv village of Trud. The protesters set fire to bales and dumped their produce on the road.

Farmers also closed the road to Greece at Kresna in both directions.

Negotiations between the farmers, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Agriculture on Wednesday lasted nearly four hours but the memorandum proposed by the authorities was not signed.

However, the authorities and farmers have agreed on a€76 million (150 million BGN) support package for certain sectors.

New negotiations are scheduled for Friday.

Overnight protest in Barcelona

In Spain, around a hundred Catalan farmers who took to the streets of Barcelona on Wednesday spent the night sleeping in cabins or under their tractors in a bid to meet the president of the Catalan regional parliament on Thursday morning.

Authorities had warned the farmers that they needed to move their tractors by 06:00 this morning or they would face fines.

The farmers are protesting against excessive costs and bureaucracy in the sector and claim that major food distributors are "putting an end" to their livelihoods.