Brussels, 11/04/2014 (Agence Europe) - In Luxembourg on Monday 14 April, the agriculture ministers of the countries of the European Union will meet to discuss the future of the fruit and vegetables sector, dairy quotas and the drought in Cyprus. The Council is expected to approve the delegated acts on the implementation of the reform of the common agriculture policy (CAP).
It will be a light menu for this meeting of the Council, which will be chaired by Greek Minister Athanasios Tsaftaris, and which will start at about 11.00am and end at about 5.00pm. The only formal point on the agenda concerns a debate on a Commission report on fruit and vegetables. This report was presented by the Commission at the last Agriculture Council, in March (see EUROPE 11047). The 2007 reform aimed to reinforce the role of the producer organisations (POs) for fruit and vegetables, by making a broader range of instruments available to them to allow them to prevent and manage market crises. Incentive measures have been adopted to encourage mergers of POs as well as the creation of associations of POs. The reform of the CAP brought in certain changes (possibility for PO associations to establish operational programmes, extension of management crisis management and prevention tools, etc). The degree of organisation of producers in the fruit and vegetables sector varies greatly from one country of the EU to the next and crisis management and prevention instruments need to be improved, as they are underused: this is how Dacian Ciolos, European Commissioner for Agriculture, summed up the situation in March, when he presented the Agriculture Council with the conclusions of the report (published early March 2014) on the fruit and vegetables sector.
In view of the challenges facing the sector, the Presidency calls on the Council to examine the following questions: how to promote a better level of organisation in the fruit and vegetables sector throughout the EU (and how to reduce the imbalance in terms of levels of organisation between the member states and/or regions); the possibility fine-tuning the existing tools and instruments to allow them to respond to the challenges referred to by the Commission; making the best allocation of the financial resources whilst maintaining budget neutrality; the need (or not), at this stage,to improve the use of the crisis management and prevention instruments further.
Milk quota system. After the discussions at the last Agriculture Council in March on the “soft landing” in the milk and dairy products sector (in the context of the abolition of the milk quota system in 2015), the Austrian delegation asked the legal services of the Council for clarification on the legal basis for the payment of the superlevy, which will be payable in the event that quotas are exceeded after March 2015, once the milk quota system has been abolished.
Drought in Cyprus. The Cypriot delegation will report back to the ministers on the consequences for agriculture of the drought which hit Cyprus this winter. Like much of the rest of the eastern Mediterranean, winter 2013/2014 was exceptionally dry in Cyprus. The drought, combined with current economic and financial problems and a reduction of the financial envelope of the country under its rural development programme, risks plunging many farmers into a very difficult situation.
The Cypriot delegation will ask the Commission to propose appropriate measures, including the possible use of the crisis reserve laid down by regulation 1306/2013 on rural development.
Additionally, Romania is to raise the issue of the week-long regional conference of the FAO, which was held from 29 March to 4 April 2014. Lastly, Latvia will call on the EU to take exceptional measures to resolve problems in the winter cereals sector in the country.
Delegated acts. The Council is expected to approve without debate the 11 delegated acts on the table on the implementation of the reform of the common agriculture policy (CAP).