Rabat – Spanish workers’ union Solidaridad, which is affiliated with the conservative party Vox, has recently joined other unions in condemning the recent European Trade Commission decision that allows Morocco to export poultry products to the union.
Rodrigo Alonso, the general secretary of Solidaridad, told the Spanish newspaper La Gaceta that “Moroccan chicken meat brings with it two problems: the first is that it is going to throw market prices even further to the ground, and the second, and no less importantly, is that the meat does not meet the basic sanitary conditions.”
Describing the decision as a “new betrayal” to local breeders, Alonso said that “Spain must recover its food sovereignty and demand that the law of the food chain is complied with.”
The general secretary further noted that Spain is the second largest producer of chicken meat in Europe, after the United Kingdom. Following Brexit, however, Spain has served as the first producer of chicken meat in the European Union.
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Thus, the workers union has called upon the Spanish government and European entities to cut chicken imports from Morocco to protect local producers.
Earlier this week, Spain’s Coordination of Farmers and Ranchers Organizations (COAG) and Union of Small Farmers and Ranchers (UPA) said that Spanish breeders have faced financial difficulties keeping up with the surge in food and energy prices.
UPA, for instance, stressed that poultry prices have increased over the past months, while breeders’ revenues remained “totally insufficient” and “have not stopped falling.” According to the UPA, the current situation is “unsustainable.”
Read Also: Spain’s VOX Party Attacks Morocco’s Agricultural Exports to EU
