Brussels, 05/05/2011 (Agence Europe) - During a demonstration in front of the European Parliament in Brussels on Wednesday 4 May the EMB (European Milk Board) called on the European Commission to authorise milk producers to pool sufficiently independent producer organisations and set up a monitoring agency to keep an eye on the market.
According to a press release from the organisation at the end of the demonstration by the different European producer delegations on Wednesday morning, these two demands constitute “the precondition for sustainable agriculture in the consumers' interest”.
The European milk producers' organisation considers that the Commission's legislative proposals on the milk market and on which they will give their verdict on the 24 and 25 May at the European Parliament agriculture committee contain “clear weaknesses”. The EMB considers that this project “will not be able to bring about the strengthening of the producers' position in the milk market that the parliament also wishes”.
The EMB vice-president, Sieta van Keimpema, said that the fires lit outside the Parliament symbolise “the crises that are to be expected again in the milk market if the milk producers are not given the opportunity within a basic legal framework to unite in order to have an influence on the milk market and thus achieve fair prices”.
The EMB states that “what was crucial as regards pooling was that this could be unlimited on a national level and be allowed up to 30% across the EU”. A member of the EMB management committee, Willem Smeenk, explained that “pooling invariably means bringing the producers together in independent producer organisations regardless of whether they supply their milk to a privately run or cooperative dairy”. The EMB deplores the fact that the Commission's legislative draft does not contain any of these possibilities. It also regrets that the draft “prohibits what is termed double membership in cooperative and producer groups”. The president of the EMB, Romuald Schaber, considers that “producers must have the possibility vis-à-vis all dairies of stipulating sales roles and base prices via their own producer organisations”. He thinks that by keeping an eye on the market and laying down precise stipulations based on production costs, a monitoring agency should ensure that the volume of milk produced is in line with demand.
At the end of the demonstration at the European Parliament, milk producers went on to the Commission to demonstrate against the ultra-liberal policy of the commissioner for trade, Karel De Gucht. Erwin Schöpges, a member of the EMB management board, explained that “Mr De Gucht is destroying farming structures with his policy of 'world market competitiveness at any price'; the only ones that profit are the dairies and the banks”. (L.C./transl.fl)