Brussels, 30/07/2015 (Agence Europe) - Copa and Cogeca wrote to the European Commission on Tuesday 28 July, welcoming the move to extend support for EU fruit and vegetable growers to 2016 to alleviate the impact of the Russian ban on EU exports, but called for more products to be included in the measure.
Copa-Cogeca Secretary General Pekka Pesonen said these European agricultural organisations were urging the Commission to extend the list of products covered by the measure to include all fruit and vegetables that were previously exported to the Russian Federation, such as persimmons, watermelons, melons, aubergines and more.
“We also call for the new rules to apply retroactively from July 1 since the previous measures ended already on 30 June”, he said.
The proposed measures, which enable products to be withdrawn from the market and distributed freely to, for example, charities, non-food uses, green harvesting, are set to be released this week, sources have indicated, after President Putin confirmed that the export ban will continue until 2016. (Lionel Changeur)