Tuesday September 19 9:40 AM ET Europe-Wide Fuel Protest Spreads to Middle East

LONDON (Reuters) - Farmers, truckers and fishermen launched fuel protests from the North Sea to the Mediterranean Tuesday with crude oil prices close to 10-year highs.

The European demonstrations spread to the Middle East, where Israeli truckers mounted a ``go-slow'' along the main north-south road linking the ports of Haifa and Ashdod.

Crude prices saw 10-year peaks Monday, a level not seen since Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Tuesday November Brent dipped 19 cents to trade at $36.69.

Farmers demonstrated across Spain against soaring fuel prices, and a convoy of tractors arrived in Madrid.

Spain's national fuel distribution company CLH said access to five of its centers in the cities of Leon, Rota, Cartagena, Burgos and Girona had been blocked by demonstrators.

Members of the Spain's two biggest farming associations, ASAJA and COAG, said the demonstrations called for ``urgent and effective solutions'' to the crisis.

Farmers say they will not accept temporary solutions offered by the government and are demanding lower taxes on fuel. The government has ruled that out.

Fifty tractors crept down Madrid's central artery, Paseo de la Castellana, toward the economy ministry.

Fishing Boats End Protest

In Barcelona, a blockade by fishing boats of the country's biggest port ended early Tuesday. But fishermen have warned of more protests if negotiations stall, state radio reported.

Fishermen in the eastern port of Castellon had blocked the mouth of the port, the radio said.

Protests have also been called by fishermen in Huelva, on Spain's southern Atlantic coast. Demonstrations by taxi drivers and other transport workers have been set for next week.

In Germany, truckers and farmers staged a series of protests, holding up traffic, but there was little sign the government was about to yield to demands for cuts in fuel duty.

Police said about 300 trucks, taxis and buses, blowing their horns in unison, rode around Hamburg's inner ring road.

In Israel, Gabi Ben-Haroush, chief of the Haulers and Drivers Council, said truckers could widen their protest on Wednesday and the go-slow was only a ``warning shot.''

``We are making preparations for every possibility,'' said David Sadeh, deputy chief of Israel's traffic police.

Barak Threatens Action

Prime Minister Ehud Barak vowed to take unspecified action to intervene if the protests disrupted daily life, saying the price of diesel fuel used by the truckers was low in Israel compared with Europe -- 60 cents a liter ($2.30 a U.S. gallon).

Far to the north dozens of Swedish truck drivers blocked goods terminals in the North Sea port of Gothenburg, police said, as protests continued against high taxes on diesel fuel.

A blockade of Sweden's oil terminals was lifted Monday night amid fears that petrol stations would run dry.

Gothenburg, Sweden's second-largest city, reported the greatest disruption Tuesday, but blockades of terminals in the Malmo and Stockholm ports continued. Swedish media also reported trucks blocking access to Swedish Railway's goods terminals and a blockade of ferry terminals in Stockholm.

The truckers want government to scrap a planned tax increase of 0.10 crowns and to cut the present tax by 1.12 crowns.

The price of diesel in Sweden was 9.23 crowns ($0.938) of which 56 percent is tax, the Swedish Petroleum Institute said.

Although British protests were called off last week, Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labor government was hit by new evidence of a drop in popularity when an opinion poll put the opposition Conservatives four points ahead.

The ICM poll in the Guardian newspaper gave the opposition Conservatives a four point lead over Labour's 34 percent. Labour's popularity has slumped 10 points in a month.

Petrol costs about 80 pence ($1.13) a liter in Britain.

British police chiefs Tuesday urged the public not to start panic buying of petrol again as they investigated rumors that truckers and farmers might resume petrol blockades.

In Ireland, most of the country's fishermen turned back to shore in a 24-hour-long protest against high fuel prices.

In Brussels, European Union energy chief Loyola de Palacio said governments would be playing into oil producers' hands if they cut energy taxes to combat economic hardship caused by high crude prices

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/htx/nm/20000919/wl/energy_europe_dc_31.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), September 19, 2000