Factories close, supermarkets empty and jets run out of fuel as truckers' strike bites
· Spain promises tough response despite deaths
· Britain on alert as action threatens to spread
Strike action by thousands of Spanish and Portuguese truckers produced ominous knock-on effects on food supplies, aviation and industry yesterday, as Lisbon airport ran out of fuel, car factories shut down and petrol stations and supermarkets reported shortages.
In a worrying sign for other European countries that face rising discontent at the spiralling cost of diesel, a third day of strikes generated widespread mayhem and the mood turned ugly after the first casualties of the standoff: two strikers died in clashes on picket lines.
Tourists flying to Lisbon faced delays after the airport ran out of fuel. Some flights were diverted to Porto. Only emergency, military or state flights were allowed out of Portela airport, a spokesman said. Only emergency fuel stocks saved Spanish airlines from similar disruption.
Supermarkets, meanwhile, reported dwindling supplies. Authorities at Spain's two biggest wholesale markets, Mercamadrid, in Madrid, and Mercabarna in Barcelona, reported deliveries of meat, fish and fruit were almost at a standstill.
In Barcelona, at a branch of Caprabo supermarket, there was no fresh fish or meat on the shelves. Shopper María Luz Martínez, 38, said: "The lorry drivers are looking after themselves while we are all suffering. But the government doesn't appear to be that interested."
As panic buying among motorists continued, petrol stations were running dry. Drivers in Lisbon trying to fill up their cars were turned away. In Spain, "empty" signs hung from pumps at hundreds of stations across the country. Three car firms, Seat, Nissan and Mercedes, suspended production because of parts shortages.
Some ferries from the Balearic islands to mainland Spain were cancelled due to lack of fuel. José María Pozancos, director of Spain's fruit and vegetable export federation, said the strike was costing the industry €25m (£20m) a day.
The action is being closely watched in France, Italy, Britain and other countries where the threat of a similar strike looms. Diesel prices have shot up on average around 40% over the past year amid record jumps in oil prices, and truckers say profits have been all but wiped out. Italian hauliers are planning a five-day strike at the end of the month, while their British counterparts are targeting central London again on July 2.
With unions talking of coordinated action in several countries at a time and policymakers in Brussels refusing to countenance tax breaks, the fear is that the action in Spain and Portugal could spread. Yesterday truckers in Thailand used a half-day strike to demand financial help.
As the Spanish government yesterday deployed 25,000 police to clear major routes, the mood among strikers was increasingly turning bitter. Scores of pickets were arrested in clashes with police and two drivers were killed at blockades.
Lorry driver Julio Cervilla Sojo, 47, a father of two, died after being run over by a lorry which was trying to pass picket lines near Granada on Tuesday. A man was arrested and appeared in court.
In Portugal, a 52-year-old man was killed on a picket line north of Lisbon, as he tried to stop a lorry passing a blockade.
Picketers in Spain have thrown stones at lorries trying to pass blockades. One driver suffered serious burns near Alicante when four trucks were set on fire.
Hooded strikers in Valencia were photographed brandishing knives. Riot police cleared pickets blocking routes into major cities and the La Junquera junction between Catalonia and France.
Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, the Spanish interior minister, said 51 people were arrested after violence on picket lines. He said: "There is a constitutional right to strike. There is no constitutional right to disrupt people's lives. Therefore, we are going to continue acting with maximum force and maximum firmness."
For Spain's prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who is already facing a downturn in the economy since the end of the building boom, the strike is the most serious bout of industrial unrest since he took power in 2004.
About 70,000 mostly self-employed drivers from two unions, which make up about 20% of the industry, are demanding guaranteed haulage rates so they can offset rising fuel prices. But the government, which has offered tax concessions to the lorry drivers, opposes fixing guaranteed rates, saying it would be against EU free-market principles.
MADRID — Spanish truck drivers began a blockade of their country’s border with France on Monday, lining up their rigs and slowing them to a crawl to protest the cost of diesel fuel.
The strike blocked the highway in both directions in southwestern France. But the Spanish drivers were not the only ones feeling the price pinch. French drivers slowed traffic near Bordeaux to demand lower fuel prices, offering a foretaste of a national strike planned by French truckers next Monday.
Portuguese drivers blocked roads, and in Liège, Belgium, thousands of labor union members demonstrated to protest the rising cost of living as a result of higher fuel costs.
Fuel prices have been far higher in Europe than in the United States for many years, largely as a result of fuel taxes. Taxes account for at least half the price that motorists pay and sometimes more than 70 percent.
But the sustained surge in oil prices has left many Europeans bewildered by the relentless increase in the cost of fuel. Depending on where and how it is bought, the price of diesel — widely used in private cars as well as by truckers, fishermen and farmers — can reach the equivalent of almost $9 per gallon.
Across Spain, about 70,000 truckers joined the strike Monday, according to Desirée Paseiro, a representative of a truckers’ association that is threatening to paralyze the country unless the government introduces measures to lower fuel bills.
The strike has alarmed many people, who already have begun lining up at gas stations and supermarkets for fear that supplies will be cut. Wholesale food markets like Mercamadrid stocked up on fish and meat over the weekend so their stalls would not be left bare.
On Monday morning, groups of slow-moving trucks blocked the major highways that surround Madrid in a so-called snail protest that snarled traffic. Some food distributors fear that their trucks will not be allowed to roll.
“We are the ones who move the merchandise that this country needs to function,” Julio Villascusa, a truckers’ representative, told the Cadena Ser radio station on the eve of the strike. “If we don’t have the money to keep buying fuel to offer this public service, well, then, this country comes to a halt.”
Spanish truckers say the price of diesel, which varies among European countries, was the equivalent of $7.73 per gallon, compared with $5.58 per gallon a year ago. At that price, they argue, it costs them more to buy fuel than they earn from trucking contracts.
Prices at the pump could continue to climb, according to Jeffrey Currie, the global chief of commodities research at Goldman Sachs. At an oil and gas conference in Malaysia on Monday, he said that oil prices were likely to hit $150 a barrel this summer, surpassing the record of $139.12 set last Friday, Reuters reported.
Spain has been particularly hard hit as soaring fuel prices coincide with the sharpest economic retreat in 15 years. The Spanish government has so far offered loans to the industry, composed principally of small businesses.
Dale Fuchs reported from Madrid, and Alan Cowell from Paris.
9/11-15/08 
