Would you believe it? Even Europeans have their limits!

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European Fuel Protests Pick Up Speed 

OSLO (Reuters) - The wave of fuel price protests sweeping through Europe regained momentum Monday after a weekend lull, while shaken governments scrambled to limit the political fallout.

Monday's protests centered on Scandinavia but blockades sprang up at the Spanish port of Barcelona and in Slovenia, while Israeli truckers threatened to stage their own demonstrations from Tuesday.

In Norway, demonstrators blocked 11 oil terminals at key ports along the south and west coasts, but later called off their protest under the threat of police action.

Swedish truckers and farmers partially blockaded southern ports and ferries Monday in protest at a planned increase in the tax on diesel fuel. The protests were expected to involve about 400 drivers and stop traffic from ferries between Sweden and Denmark and Sweden and Germany.

Spanish fishermen, meanwhile, sealed off Barcelona's port and truckers laid siege to fuel distribution points in the center of the country.

Drivers throughout the continent, dismayed at rising prices of gasoline and diesel sparked by higher world oil prices, have been demanding their governments reduce the tax burden on fuel.

Some, like France and Italy, have made concessions while Britain and others have refused to budge. Most, however, have agreed to discuss truckers' demands and are planning to appeal to OPEC (news - web sites), under the auspices of the G7 group of advanced countries, for more crude output to bring prices down.

In Britain, where fuel supplies were gradually returning to normal after last week's blockades, Labor Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) was assessing the political damage.

Conservative opposition leader William Hague called the protests ``a genuine taxpayers' revolt'' and said tax was now ''the hottest domestic political issue'' facing Britain.

A weekend poll put the Conservatives ahead of Labor for the first time in eight years after the protests prompted a shortage of fuel and supplies not seen in Britain since the 1970s.

In Germany, the government was due to discuss Monday how to ease the pain of high fuel costs but the center-left ruling alliance appeared split over tax breaks.

Talks were also due this week in Ireland, where hauliers have promised to refrain from protests for the time being.

Norway Protests

Norway -- the second biggest oil exporter in the world behind Saudi Arabia -- had escaped the first days of protests even though it has some of the highest gasoline and diesel prices.

Monday, however, hundreds of truckers blocked terminals in Oslo, Fredrikstad, Toensberg and Stavanger, all on the southern coast, and two terminals and the Mongstad oil refinery near Bergen in west Norway.

The hauliers announced the blockade last week after Labor Finance Minister Karl Eirik Schjoett-Pedersen refused to promise fuel tax cuts in a draft 2001 budget.

But the protests ended after a few hours when the state oil company Statoil threatened to bring in the police.

``Statoil has reported the blockade to the police and we have therefore decided to call off the demonstrations immediately,'' the truckers said in a statement.

Demonstrations in Spain began last Friday and resumed with a vengeance Monday as fishermen effectively sealed off the port of Barcelona.

``There's no way in or out,'' said a source at the Port Authority in Barcelona. ``Negotiations are going on with a representative of the fishermen.''

Two large cruising vessels were stopped just outside the port and around 200 fishing boats were unable to set out for their daily catch, officials said.

In the central region of Castille and Leon, the main grain-producing region, farmers blocked at least three fuel distribution points, state radio said. Police were trying to break up the demonstrations.



-- (mark842@hotmail.com), September 18, 2000

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