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Presidents of the unions of truck drivers will decide today whether to suspend their protest for a week. This is the retailers’ proposal as they already lack dairy products, vegetables and pasta, while producers are complaining that their products stay trapped in ports.

Retailers and carriers did not reach to an agreement at the meeting yesterday, but retailers are hoping that the leaders of the nine unions will have mercy on them. Retailers offered “the market to take a breath” and to support the carriers so as to continue the dialogue with the government and to clarify the controversial points in the proposals of the Ministry of Transport. According to a carriers’ syndicalist, they carefully listened to the retailers’ concerns and positions but did not answer immediately as they had to inform the nine union presidents in Greece during their meeting at 12o’clock today.

It is clear that carriers want to postpone the implementation of the law on the liberalization of their profession that was passed the last week. Their aim is to clarify the details relating to tax benefits, retirement and their participation in the development programs, but the government is determined not to step back.

There are still about 730 trucks along the lanes of Attica highway and around Thessaloniki too. Meanwhile, unknown people attacked two trucks carrying goods at the entrance of the Egnatia highway to Evzonos on Saturday night. One of the drivers was injured and taken to a hospital and the trucks were damaged. They were carrying goods from the city of Naousa to Germany.  

Skirmishes in places where trucks clustered continue. Drivers that gathered on the bridge at Thebes on the Athens-Lamia highway on Sunday night threw a pavestone to a truck moving under the bridge with 85 km/h. The pavestone broke the windscreen of the truck but fortunately hit the navigator’s side, where no one sat. The driver managed to control and stop the heavy truck, so it has not resulted in a serious accident on the highway.

There were quarrels at the headquarters of the Greek Oil company in Kalohori near Thessaloniki, where truck owners tried to stop the tanks to drive out. The carriers that still continue their protest wanted to stop four tanks loaded with fuel to leave the city of Katerini. Ultimately, the tanks managed to leave with a police escort. But the carriers did not give up. They followed the tanks to the toll pay points on Malgara and indicted that the tanks were overloaded and should be weighed. Finally, the tanks came to their final destination despite the obstacles and with the intervention of the police.

The results of the protests are increasingly perceived shortages of goods and retailers stress. 20% of the products are missing in the super-markets in northern Greece and the internationally owned super-markets experience the most serious problems as there are no basic commodities on their shelves. Retailers in the town of Chania on the island of Crete and Rhodes face serious difficulties too.

A representative of Lidl accused before the prosecution truck owners in blocking the juncture of the old highway from Thessaloniki to Veria at the village of Gefira thus hindering the trucks to leave the central warehouse and make deliveries to the stores of the foreign company. “The companies that do not avail their own supply network face quite serious problems. Even we, that have our own network, lack some products, especially those that are imported from abroad or are of companies headquartered in Athens," says Mr. Diamandis Masutis, owner of Masutis Super-Markets in Northern Greece to Ta Nea newspaper.