Greek farmers storm airports, disrupt flights over delayed EU subsidies

On the tarmac at Heraklion International Airport in Crete, farmers and livestock breeders did something that would have been absurd under any other circumstance: they played football. A bright pink ball moved back and forth across the runway as the men kicked it in what looked like a casual game, except that nothing about this moment was casual. Behind them lay a dispute over €600 million in European Union subsidies that had not arrived, and ahead lay the grinding machinery of a nationwide agricultural uprising that would soon threaten ports, toll booths, and the movement of goods across Greece.

The occupation of Heraklion Airport was one front in a coordinated action that unfolded across Crete on a single day in early December. At Chania International Airport, the island's second-largest, demonstrators blocked access and clashed with police. Eight officers were injured in the violence. Farmers threw rocks at riot police, who responded with tear gas. In the chaos, patrol cars were overturned. The stone-throwing damaged buses belonging to the Heraklion Urban service and vehicles parked nearby. At least ten flights were grounded across the two airports, stranding tourists and disrupting holiday travel plans. Chania eventually resumed limited operations, managing one departure every three hours.

The agricultural workers were not acting on impulse. They were protesting the delayed disbursement of subsidies from Brussels—money that should have reached their accounts but had stalled in the bureaucratic machinery. The delays had compounded over time, creating a backlog of payments that farmers depended on to sustain their operations. Some of these payments were also frozen as part of a corruption investigation into how agricultural aid had been distributed. The financial pressure was real and mounting.

The demonstrations extended beyond the airports. In Karditsa, farmers surrounded the political office of Rural Development Minister Costas Tsiaras, throwing animal feed at the building as a form of protest. On the Athens-Thessaloniki National Road near Nakia, a line of tractors blocked the main route for two hours, forcing traffic to divert. The blockades were deliberate, visible, and designed to create maximum disruption—a message that could not be ignored.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis responded by urging the farmers to lift their blockades and come to the negotiating table. He promised that significant payments would arrive by the end of December and acknowledged the frozen funds caught in the corruption investigation. "The door of the government is open," he said. "It would be better for dialogue to happen with open roads, not closed ones." He asked the farmers to approach talks with clear demands and to engage constructively. The message was conciliatory but also firm: end the disruption, come inside, and let us talk.

The farmers, however, were not ready to stand down. One protester, speaking to reporters, made clear that the escalation would continue and intensify. "Little by little the escalation will not only be mild but also dynamic," he said. "As long as they do not respond to our demands, we will escalate." The occupation of the airports was planned to continue through Tuesday morning. Beyond that, the movement was preparing to block the ports in Thessaloniki and Volos—major commercial hubs—by both land and sea. Toll booths were also on the target list, particularly the ones on the Rio-Antirrio bridge, a critical transportation chokepoint.

Authorities had begun identifying participants in the violent clashes and were preparing criminal charges. The national committee coordinating the blockades was scheduled to meet in Nice at the end of the week to plan the next phase of action. What had begun as a protest over delayed money had become a test of whether the government could deliver on its promises before the farmers' patience ran out and the disruption spread to the nation's ports and highways.