Brussels, 09/02/2016 (Agence Europe) - France's agriculture minister Stephane Le Foll sent his European counterparts a memorandum on Monday 8 February setting out possible ways in which the milk and pigmeat markets could be regulated (see EUROPE 11485).
France is trying to push back the boundaries at EU level ahead of the Agriculture Council in Brussels on 15 February.
Cows' milk market. France believes that short-term measures must be taken to address the concerns of both markets and operators. It is crucial that the Commission immediately implement: - a temporary increase of several cents per litre in the intervention price, accompanied by a commitment of production levels, and this alongside continuation of private storage aid; - exceptional promotion measures both inside the internal market and aimed at third countries; - a genuine European export credit instrument: export credit helps boost exports by enabling exporting companies to offer their foreign clients financing options and thus make it easier to close sales (foreign competitors all have similar possibilities for their exporting companies).
Structural measures are also needed and, for this, France calls for a high-level group to be set up for the milk sector. So that intervention can play its full role as a safety net, there should be continuous revision of reference thresholds and intervention prices (which have remained unchanged since 2008), taking account of purchasing power parities among member states.
To avoid a race to increase production, innovative mechanisms should be considered: - guidelines to shape early warning and crisis prevention mechanisms, define differing levels of crisis on the basis of criteria and indicators contained in the European observatory, and provide for tools to support farms, farming systems and production areas threatened by severe market imbalance; - a mechanism for granting EU aid to producers who voluntarily cut production levels when prices fall (on the basis of the model adopted by a Dutch cooperative).
Pork market. Faced with the persistent imbalance between supply and demand, private storage aid measures have only had a limited and partial impact and must be kept in place as long as required and until the measures designed to open new outlets have produced results. If this does not happen (the Commission recently ended private storage), reducing the number of sows (adjusting it to farmers' fattening capacities) could have an equivalent effect in reducing supply.
France also wants to see robust diplomatic action from the Commission to have the Russian embargo on pig fats and offal lifted. France also calls for aggressive and effective tariff and non-tariff action to open and sustain new export outlets. In addition to the progress that has to be made on the Russian market, real progress is called for on non-tariff barriers, particularly on the Chinese, US, Australian and Mexican markets. Lastly, exceptional large-scale promotion measures must be put in place at EU level.
European directive on posted workers. The French Ministry of Agriculture is working with the Labour Ministry to have the posting of workers directive revised “to put an end to social dumping on wage costs”, said Le Foll's private office.
Meat traceability. Le Foll is still hopeful of persuading the other member states and the Commission of the need for compulsory labelling of the origin of meat in prepared dishes. In France, an order on the origin of meats (with voluntary labelling of fresh meats and meats used in prepared dishes) will be put down and the Commission notified. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)