Brussels, 04/03/2016 (Agence Europe) - The Dutch Presidency of the Council has compiled more than 100 measures or initiatives proposed by the member states to help resolve the crisis affecting several agricultural sectors.
On Monday 7 March at the Special Committee on Agriculture (SCA), the Presidency will be proposing a summary of measures proposed by the member states, in preparation for the Agriculture Council decisions on 14 March. On 7 March in Strasbourg, Commissioner Phil Hogan will also be debating the crisis with the EP Agriculture Committee.
The Dutch Presidency will be calling on SCA experts to say whether they agreed to use the agricultural budget's crisis reserve. In its contributions, Malta is intending to use this crisis reservation, whilst Luxembourg is opposed to it because it claims that it would involve a fall in direct payments.
Regulation. France is suggesting a number of possibilities for milk production regulation. In an interview to the Libération newspaper on 1 March, Stéphane Le Foll, the French Minister, claimed “Belgium and Portugal are totally behind France, Spain is partly behind us, as well as Romania and Poland and some of the smaller countries like Slovakia, Slovenia and Cyprus”. He added that “Greece and Austria also have the same vision of things. On the other hand, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden do not support our line”. Germany has not yet said what it thinks about the regulation.
Market management. In their contributions, half of all member states are calling for maintaining and improving the private storage assistance system for milk products, including cheese in some cases, as well as pork. A smaller number of these states (Poland, France, Spain, Portugal, Czech Republic, etc.) have called for an increase in intervention prices in the milk sector - Finland has expressed its “doubts” about the idea - and/or the ceiling on these public purchases (Ireland, Austria, France and the Czech Republic, etc). Ireland has called for a one-year deferral in the payment by instalments for the most recent dairy superlevy.
Several countries (Spain, Belgium, France, Slovenia) suggest the setting up of a pork market observatory, as well as for beef, similarly to the one that exists for milk.
Finally, Spain, Italy, Slovenia, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and Portugal are calling for greater support for fruit and vegetables. The first two of these countries have experienced difficulties linked to imports of Moroccan tomatoes. Italy is calling for an increase in withdrawal prices and a safeguard clause for tomatoes.
Developments in outlets. Obviously, a significant number of contributions highlighted the need to step up negotiations to get Russia to lift its health embargo on EU pork. One of these contributions from Austria said that this ban “should be restricted to member states or regions that have effectively been affected by African swine fever”.
The introduction of a credit export instrument, which the European Commission has been looking into, is being sought by several member states (including Germany, Finland, France and the Czech Republic). Getting rid of nontariff areas from third countries has also often been called for by a number of countries.
A majority of countries support further action for promotion, particularly in third countries. Poland also defended the use of export refunds.
Around 10 or so contributions (France, Italy, United Kingdom, Finland, Austria, etc.) reaffirmed the need for mandatory labelling of origin for milk and meat in processed products. Luxembourg opposed this obligation.
Italy, the United Kingdom, Slovenia and Estonia are calling for a better balance of powers in the food chain. Around 10 member states (France, Italy, Poland, Portugal, etc.) are proposing to strengthen food product distribution in the EU for humanitarian uses (the destitute, refugees, etc).
National assistance. An increase in the de minimis ceiling below which national support can be considered as not constituting state aid is supported by around 10 member states (France, Poland, Ireland, Lithuanian, Germany, Italy, etc.). The Commission is working on this possibility. Germany wanted to introduce a derogation to finance a reduction in its milk livestock.
Support for Treasury. Around 10 member states (Poland, Hungary, Romania, Austria, Czech Republic, etc.) are calling for a new exceptional EU financial envelope distributed between the EU 28, similarly to the €420 million envelope announced in September. Several countries (Spain, Ireland, and Belgium) would like financial instruments for granting low interest rate loans to farmers by the European Investment Bank (EIB).
Sweden called for some flexibility in the system for advanced direct payments for 2016. The Czech Republic and Spain are calling for broader and more flexible use of coupled support.
Insurance income. A number of measures were also put forward by several member states to tackle the sharp falls in agricultural income: insurance income (Finland and Greece), easier access to risk management instruments (Italy, Sweden, Spain and Lithuania), safety net (Latvia, Hungary and Cyprus), as well as the commodity futures markets in the milk sector (United Kingdom, Luxembourg and Sweden).
In a press release published on Friday 4 March, Copa-Cogeca argued for: lifting the Russian embargo, speeding up trade negotiations with Japan, strengthening promotion measures, export credit insurance, a temporary rise in EU dairy intervention prices and the extension of private storage aid (milk and pork), a revision of market instruments for the fruit and vegetables sector and minimum entry prices for tomatoes imported into the EU. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)