European fishermen, truckers protest over fuel

By Jeremy Lovell

LONDON (Reuters) - Spanish fishermen handed out free fish while European truckers and seamen from Portugal to Bulgaria blocked roads and ports on Friday, demanding government action to curb rising fuel prices.

Thailand became the latest Asian state to buckle under pressure, its state-run refineries agreeing to supply cheaper diesel to private bus operators after a day of strikes.

In Madrid, a crowd of mostly elderly men and women scrambled for fish being handed out from the back of two small trucks near the capital's Fisheries Ministry.

The action was designed to show that with fuel prices at their current level, fishermen were practically giving away fish, Javier Garat, secretary-general of fishermen's union Cepesca said.

"This situation is unsustainable," said Elias Eijo, 38, one of four brothers who operate a fishing boat in Galicia, on the Atlantic coast of northwestern Spain.

He said fuel costs and meager fish prices driven down by imports meant crew-members wages had plummeted and he and his brothers had no money to repair their boat.

"Right now we're earning nothing. How do we live? We don't, that's why we are here," he said pointing to the ministry, shrouded in colored fumes from protesters' smoke bombs.

Some fishermen threaten to block harbors, as their French counterparts have done. Truck drivers are threatening a strike from June 8 and taxi drivers also plan protests.

More than 100 truck drivers converged into a convoy on a ring road of the Bulgarian capital Sofia on Friday demanding excise duty rebates.

Truckers, farmers and fishermen across Europe have launched protests at the climbing cost of oil. U.S. crude climbed back over $127 a barrel on Friday.

France has called on the Group of Eight industrialized nations to act together to restore oil prices to a lower level, warning that economic growth was under threat.

OPERATION SNAIL

In Asia Indonesia, Taiwan and Sri Lanka have raised state-regulated fuel prices, forced into unpopular action by the unsustainable cost of subsidies.

India is expected to take a decision on prices in the next two to three days. China, using nearly three times as much fuel as India, was unlikely to act until after the Olympics.

Petrol stations in at least three major Chinese coastal cities were rationing diesel, drivers said.