Brussels, 16/03/2012 (Agence Europe) - In an attempt to alleviate the crisis on the EU olive oil market, Copa-Cogeca sent a letter to the EU Commission on Thursday 15 March calling for private storage for olive oil to be opened immediately for at least an additional 100,000 tonnes of extra virgin olive oil and virgin olive oil. The Commission has studied the market and believes that it is still too soon to trigger this market measure, given that aid for the private storage of 100,000 of Spanish olive oil has just been granted.
Chairman of the Copa-Cogeca olive oil working party Rafael Sanchez de Puerta highlighted: “Prices are very low and significant quantities of virgin and extra virgin olive oil will have to be stored until prices recover. We are talking about 20,000 of virgin olive oil and 14,900 tonnes of extra virgin. We welcomed the Commission decision to activate aid for private storage at the start of February but that has not been enough to stabilise the market. Prices remain below the trigger price for activation of private storage and do not even cover production costs. If nothing is done, prices could fall further. So we are calling on the Commission to open private storage aid for at least another 100,000 tonnes of virgin and extra virgin olive oil. Care must be taken, too, to ensure that there is no disruption of the market when the oil is brought out of storage and put back on the market.”
In order to avoid such serious disruption in future, Copa-Cogeca also calls on the Commission to bring forward a “long-term strategic plan for the sector”. The olive crop is vital for the main producing countries - Spain, Italy, Greece, Portugal and France - in terms of maintaining employment in their rural areas, the organisations say. “We are pleased that the Commission plans to make the food chain work better and reinforce producers bargaining power. We look forward to seeing concrete measures”, Copa-Cogeca said.
It is still too soon, the Commission says, to re-open private storage aid. It is waiting first to see the effect its initial decision to privately store 100,000 tonnes of Spanish olive oil will have. It is continuing to monitor the market and will decide if further action is necessary.
For the medium and long terms, the Commission has sought an economic analysis (a DG Agriculture internal report) which is expected to be published in the next few weeks. This will mean that discussion can begin on possible measures, especially to improve market structures (marketing for quality products, producers' organisations). (LC/transl.rt)