Nothing worked on many Spanish city motorways on Monday.

In the middle of rush hour, long convoys of trucks drove through Madrid, Seville, Valencia and many other cities at a snail's pace.

Tens of thousands of self-employed drivers in Spain have been on strike for a week.

Milk is no longer in the dairies, fish is no longer in the wholesale markets, and in Andalusia there is already a shortage of petrol at some petrol stations.

Supermarket chains like Carrefour and clothing stores like Zara are warning their customers about bottlenecks and delivery problems.

Hans Christian Roessler

Political correspondent for the Iberian Peninsula and the Maghreb based in Madrid.

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And this could all be just the beginning.

On Monday, the largest truck driver unions presented the left-wing minority government with an ultimatum: if there is no immediate relief from fuel prices, members will be given the freedom to walk down their jobs.

The previous campaigns had been organized by a coalition of more than 70,000 self-employed drivers.

"The diesel price is the straw that breaks the camel's back," said a spokesman for the new "Platform for the Defense of Transport".

The economic damage of the first week of the strike is estimated at 600 million euros.

The government has already deployed thousands of police officers to prevent violence – previously there had been attacks on truck drivers who did not take part in the strikes.

Vague promises are no longer enough

Impatience with the government of Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is growing day by day.

Unlike other European countries, Spain has not yet come to its citizens' aid to alleviate the economic consequences of the Ukraine war.

Sánchez has been hectic in Europe for days.

By the time of the EU summit meeting this week, he wants to convince the European partners of a common line to combat the worst consequences of the war.

On Monday he was in Paris and Brussels, on Friday in Berlin and Rome.

Together with Portugal, Spain had initially advocated a maximum price for electricity of 180 euros per kilowatt hour, but moved away from this proposal on Monday.

Vague promises are no longer enough for many Spaniards: they have been suffering from the inexorably rising energy prices for the past year.

"Yellow vests" like in France have not yet appeared in Spain.

But on Sunday hundreds of thousands wore orange vests and caps on Castellana Boulevard as farmers, hunters, fishermen and bull breeders protested in Madrid.

According to the organizers, which includes the largest agricultural associations in the country, there were more than 400,000.

It was one of the largest demonstrations by the rural population, whose situation has further aggravated the consequences of the Ukraine war.

Fuel, feed and fertilizer are becoming increasingly expensive.

In Castile, the first shepherds are taking their flocks to the slaughterhouses because they can no longer cover the cost of feed.

Piglets and hogs are trading well below what they were a year ago, while production costs have risen by 80 percent.

Agriculture is practically the only branch of industry that has kept the structurally weak areas alive - and structurally weak are more than 60 percent of Spain.

In addition, the dairy farmers felt the effects of the truck strike: they had to throw away three million liters of milk because it could no longer reach the dairies.

More and more fishermen, especially in the north of the country, have refrained from setting out with their boats in the past few days.

This is due to fuel prices, which have almost tripled in just a few weeks - and the blockades of the truck drivers, because of which the fishermen had not got rid of their fish before.

On Monday, the entire Andalusian fishing fleet joined the strike called by one of the largest fishermen's associations to finally persuade the government and the EU to take emergency aid measures.

The fronts are hardened

Despite the escalation, there is no quick solution in sight in Madrid.

Prime Minister Sánchez wants to mitigate the consequences of war with a "state pact" together with the conservative People's Party (PP).

But even in his own coalition, the fronts have hardened.

With his diplomatic solo effort in Morocco, he alienated the coalition partners from the Podemos party.

Not only them, but all parties are upset that he abandoned Spain's neutrality in the Western Sahara conflict and recognized Morocco's claims to the territory without involving them.

This has made it difficult to reach an agreement on the planned pact.

The effects of the crisis could soon be felt as far as Germany, especially in the fish and strawberries that are currently being harvested near Huelva.

Truckloads of fruit are stuck in southern Spain.

On the coasts, there are also fears that the war could dampen the desire to travel among many Europeans.

Bookings for the British, who make up the largest group, fell by a third compared to 2021.

However, for the Spanish economy to recover properly once the pandemic has subsided, many holidaymakers would have to come.