Brussels, 24/07/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Friday 24 July, the Luxembourg Presidency decided to hold a special Agriculture Council in Brussels on 7 September to examine the tough situation facing agricultural markets.
Several farm ministers, such as the French, Belgian and Italian, have been calling for the convening of an extraordinary council and in a press release, the Luxembourg Presidency explains that in the light of the economic crisis currently facing the dairy and livestock sectors in a number of European Union member states, it has decided to convene an extraordinary Agriculture Council in Brussels on Monday 7 September 2015.
The problems currently facing the farm markets are due to falling global prices and the effect of the Russian embargo on agricultural products from the EU.
For several months now, French agriculture minister Stéphane Le Foll has been taking action to inform the international community of the risk that 2015 will be a very difficult year and is asking the European Commission and member states to introduce shared tools for monitoring and provide better forward planning for changes in the market via a European Dairy Market Monitoring Centre so it can be ready to take appropriate measures, such as raising the intervention price, explains the French agriculture ministry in a press release. Le Foll has managed to get a formal Agriculture Council to be convened in Brussels in September to discuss the crisis in livestock farming and more particularly dairy farming, adds the ministry.
Le Foll has called on several of his counterparts for support, notably countries facing a similar crisis (Italy, Belgium, Germany, Ireland and Luxembourg, the latter being the country that holds the rotating presidency of the EU Council of Ministers).
After a difficult 2013, the price of milk on the global market reached 36.2 cents a litre in 2014, encouraging farmers to produce more milk in order to increase their market share given the removal of quotas. Milk prices started to fall in the autumn of 2014 and good weather and falling demand from China led to a surge in global supplies. In April 2015, the price of milk fell to below 30 cents a litre.
On Wednesday 22 July, Economic Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici said that the European Commission was aware of the problems facing farmers at the moment, particularly French farmers, and is monitoring the situation very closely. He said the Commission would not hesitate to take measures where necessary, but measures are not yet required given the level of prices being observed and under the EU rules. The Commissioner said the problems facing the French farmers did not arise from the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which he described on the contrary as a facilitator and encouragement because it contains new tools, such as collective bargaining in the beef sector, which aims to boost the farmers' side in negotiations with other links of the food chain. Collective bargaining to boost farmers' negotiating power has existed since 2014. Moscovici said that he was not at present aware of any contractual negotiations in the beef sector. (Lionel Changeur)