Brussels, 02/11/2010 (Agence Europe) - During the evening of Friday 29 October, the EU gave its agreement of principle to the sale, on the internal market, of 2.8 million tonnes of cereals held by EU member state intervention bodies. The sale of these stocks will be through a tendering procedure, with the deadline for submissions for the first tender being 24 November 2010. The Commission will then adjudicate on 25 November. Releasing intervention stocks may continue until end June 2011.
The management committee of the common market organisation for cereals approved the European Commission's proposal opening the possibility to sell soft wheat and barley out of intervention stocks onto the EU market. Total quantities made available for selling on the market are 88,112 tonnes of soft wheat (of which 60,937 comes from stocks in the Czech Republic and 22,757 tonnes from Sweden), and 2.71 million tonnes of barley (of which 1.1 million tonnes for Germany and 784,136 tonnes for Finland). The remaining stocks (about 2.8 million tonnes) will be used for the “most deprived persons” programme within the EU.
“The tendering procedure for releasing stocks means that the Commission retains control of both the volume and the price of the stocks coming onto the market, and so we will follow the evolution closely to make sure that the market is not disrupted”, commented Dacian Cioloº, European Agriculture Commissioner. (L.C./transl.jl)