(Bloomberg) -- Greek farmers are escalating their protests by driving their tractors to Athens after Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said there’s no fiscal space to offer further financial relief. 

Some 140 tractors entered the city, with police stopping traffic on central roads to allow the protesters get to Syntagma Square in front of Greek parliament. Many others arrived by bus.

The disruption has also hit Athens public transportation, which has been forced to adjust schedules. The farmers plan to stay at Syntagma Square overnight and return to their bases on Wednesday morning. Leaders from opposition parties also visited the protesters. 

In recent months, farmers across Europe have been protesting over issues including soaring costs, mounting bureaucracy, new European Union regulations in its Green Deal and imports diluting their markets. Elsewhere, Indian farmer groups have taken to the streets this month to demand price guarantees and in the US farmers are complaining they’re priced out by big companies.

Greece’s farmers are asking for tax relief and a renegotiation of the Common Agricultural Policy — the EU’s subsidy regime — while they also complain for not been fully compensated for last year’s flood damage in the Thessaly region, the country’s largest agricultural area.

Following talks last week, farmers already were:  

  • granted lower power bills for the next 10 years in a bid to ease their production costs, and
  • promised a first tranche of a rebate on fuel tax in March.

Before that, Mitsotakis had already said that initial compensation for those who suffered from natural disasters will be capped at €10,000 ($10,810) instead of a previous €2,000. 

Read More: Greece Offers Cheaper Power to Farmers to Avert Athens Protest

While the premier has acknowledged that many of the farmers’ demands are justified, he’s also made clear that the government doesn’t have any leeway. 

“We have nothing more to give,” Mitsotakis said in a Star TV interview Monday night. “And I think that the farmers also recognize this and know very well that already the government probably exceeded the limits of their expectations, especially in the issue of electricity.”

Still, the prime minister sees these protests as a way for him to put extra pressure on Brussels to change the CAP when European leaders eventually discuss the issue. 

In January, agriculture ministers of nine Mediterranean countries, including France, Italy and Greece, signed a joint letter to declare their support in discussions on the climate crisis and other common concerns “such as the need for a simplification of the CAP.” The group is expected to reconvene on Feb. 26 in Brussels. 

(Updates with protest details from second paragraph.)

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