Sanchez has promised to put an end to the protest during talks with truckers this week but even worker unions friendly to Sanchez’s Socialists marched demanding his government tackle rising living costs, across major cities, on Wednesday.
Disrupting a broad supply chain network, vehicles and burning tires blocked highways as truckers teamed up in slow-moving convoys to snarl traffic in several cities.
Their frustrations have grown as costs continue to rise, and a protest last week organized on social media has brought one of continental Europe’s biggest economies to a near standstill.
It started last year with YouTube videos of angry truckers complaining about soaring fuel prices in Spain.
Without access to markets, farmers have had to dump milk and throw away vegetables. According to agriculture and food industry groups, the sector accumulated losses of 600 million euros ($658 million) last week alone.
Supermarkets are running out of things like dairy products, while automakers and brewers are scaling back production because they can’t get inputs they need.
Inditex, the world’s largest clothing retailer, said some deliveries of products ordered from its Zara website may be delayed.
French dairy giant Danone and brewer Heineken have warned they may have to halt operations and distribution in Spain.
Carrefour, one of Spain’s largest supermarket operators, put signs up in some stores to notify customers about shortages.
Bus and taxi drivers have already joined the protest. Tens of thousands of farmers and cattle ranchers on Sunday protested in the capital Madrid, some on tractors, to complain about high energy costs. After initially downplaying it as a minority movement tied to far-right groups, the government is now racing to come up with additional measures to prevent the protest from spreading.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and his government are being pressured into moving faster to defuse the protest which is now in its second week.
