NO OIL, NO TRAVEL

Gas stations in Madrid and the northeastern Catalonia region began running out of fuel Monday as an indefinite strike by truckers began to bite.

The protest over soaring fuel costs began at midnight Sunday.

Antonio Onieva, president of Madrid's station owners organization, told reporters that by 5:30 p.m., 15 percent of the capital's outlets had run out of fuel. Manuel Amado, president of Catalonia's owners' federation, said 40 percent of Catalonia's 1,714 stations had sold out.

The stoppage led to lengthy lines at many gasoline stations across the country as drivers rushed to fill up.

Drivers were paying the equivalent of about $7.32 per gallon of diesel Monday. By contrast, diesel was selling in the U.S. for about $4.75.
Truckers also blocked a number of roads around the country, including some leading into the center of Barcelona and the international border with France.
"We are the ones who move the goods that this country needs to keep working. If we stop because we haven't got the money to buy fuel then the country will stop," Julio Villascusa, president of the transport association Fenadismer, told Cadena SER radio.

Fenadismer representatives and Development Ministry officials met Monday but failed to reach agreement, stretching the strike to a second day.
Fenadismer said more than 90,000 drivers have been called to take part in the strike.

The strike was not expected to have a major effect on city food markets until later in the week.

There was almost no movement of trucks early Monday at Mercamadrid, the main wholesale food market for the Spanish capital.

Development Ministry transport chief Juan Miguel Sanchez said the government will guarantee market supplies.

Fenadismer representatives and Development Ministry officials met Monday but failed to reach agreement, stretching the strike to a second day.

A strike by fishermen across Spain also protesting fuel costs has entered a second week. News reports said smaller boats that fish closer to the coast had now joined the protest, which began May 30.

The stoppages are part of Europe-wide protests against rising prices.

Trucks deliberately slowing down to snail's pace clogged the highways around Spain's main cities Tuesday, the second day of a nationwide strike over rising fuel costs.

Some gasoline stations in Madrid and the northeastern Catalonia region were out of fuel, and there were fears that supermarket could also be affected.

Traffic to and from Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Alicante and other cities was backed up behind trucks, the Interior Ministry's traffic division said. Trucks also blocked the Junquera border crossing with France for a second day, allowing only cars to get through.

The ministry opened up three toll roads to try to ease access to Madrid.
The striking truckers -- many of whom are independent and self-employed -- are demanding minimum, guaranteed haulage rates to offset rising fuel prices and enable them to compete with large trucking companies.

The government was meeting for a second day of talks Tuesday with the truckers' representatives. But it has said that setting guaranteed rates would violate the principle of free market competition.
The strike is the most serious labor unrest that has faced Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero since he came to power in March 2004. Spanish fishermen also have been on strike since May 30 to protest rising fuel costs.
Spain is struggling with an economic slowdown after a decade-long boom in the real estate sector came to a halt.
Meanwhile, a similar truckers' protest was taking place in Hong Kong, with truck drivers in a go-slow strike to disrupt traffic and protest rising fuel costs.
About 300 marched to Hong Kong's government headquarters and demanded that fuel taxes be slashed, according to government-run broadcaster RTHK.
Light, sweet crude for July delivery was at $134.04 a barrel Tuesday in Singapore.

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. Tens of thousands of truckers in Spain, France and Portugal on Monday stepped up protests against rising fuel prices, causing mayhem on highways and blocking border crossings. Huge tailbacks built up around major cities and on the French-Spanish border as French fishermen in Mediterranean ports ended their three-week strike over the spiralling cost of fuel.
Spain's second largest hauliers' union Fenadismer, which claims to represent 70,000 out of Spain's 380,000 truck drivers, launched an open-ended strike on Monday. It said it was "peaceful" but followed "massively".
Talks Monday between the hauliers and the government ended in failure, Fenadismer said.
"Fenadismer will maintain its national strike" as the government's proposals were "insufficient", it said.
Trucks jammed several main highways including at the frontier with France, according to traffic officials, who also reported massive snarls in Madrid and Valencia.
A Spanish truckers' group calling itself the Platform for the Defence of the Transport Sector, who say they speak for 50,000 truckers, walked off the job last week. They have threatened to disrupt the opening this weekend of the International Exposition in Zaragosa.
The conservative Spanish newspaper ABC said the aim of the strikers was to block oil supplies from refineries and stocks at retail markets this week.
Spanish media said the number of trucks at wholesale markets on Monday were considerably lower than usual.
French truckers struggling with high fuel costs staged fresh protests near the Spanish border and in the southwest.
Several trucks from the southern city of Perpignan disrupted traffic at border posts, preventing trucks from crossing and causing a tailback of some 10 kilometres (six miles) on both sides of the border. Private cars were allowed through.
Protestors branded banners which read: "Trucker = Unemployed," and "It's the end of our profession."
Some 200 trucks converged on the four main motorways leading into Bordeaux Monday morning, causing 30 kilometers (20 miles) of tailbacks in and around the city.
"We are demanding immediate measures" to counter the impact of high fuel prices, said Jean-Pierre Morlin, president of the European trucking organisation for the Aquitaine region.
Portugal's Transport Minister Mario Lino was to meet later Monday with representatives of road transport associations in a bid to end the strike by truckers who have threatened to "paralyze" the country.
According to police, trucks parked at petrol pumps were stoned overnight or while they were on the road after the strike started at midnight.
Many had their windscreens shattered.
The strikers also blocked entrances to several factories. According to industry figures, there are some 40,000 truckers in Portugal serving an estimated 5,000 firms.
However, French fishermen from Mediterranean ports on Monday ended a three-week strike ahead of a key meeting of European fisheries ministers.
"All of the fleets from the Mediterranean ports went back to work this morning, but we remain very vigilant," said Ange Natoli, a representative of the Mediterranean fishing fleets.
Fleets in the Channel ports of Boulogne-sur-Mer, Calais and Dunkirk last week called off their strike pending the talks.
Portuguese fishermen called off their five-day-old strike on Wednesday.
However, their counterparts in Spain, home to Europe's largest fishing fleet, maintained their "indefinite" stoppage launched May 30.
"Almost all the ports in Spain are on strike," said the head of the Spanish Fisheries Confederation, Javier Garat.
EU fisheries ministers meet on June 23-24 tackle the fuel crisis.
Marine diesel prices have leapt by around 30 percent since the start of 2008, triggering protests in European ports as well as warnings that fishing boat owners face bankruptcy without higher subsidies.