Brussels, 16/03/2016 (Agence Europe) - The European organisations representing EU milk producers have given a rather harsh verdict of the measures decided by the Agriculture Council on Monday 14 March (see EUROPE 11512).
The European Commission will adopt a regulation as soon as possible to enable producer organisations and inter-professional bodies to establish voluntary agreements on their production and supplies. It also announced a temporary increase in state aid (€15,000 a year per farmer, without a national ceiling) and a doubling of the quantitative limits for skimmed milk powder and butter for intervention (218,000 t and 100,000 t respectively).
The organisations representing milk producers have been more critical than Copa-Cogeca regarding the results obtained and the way in which the agricultural crisis has been managed.
The European Milk Board (EMB) highlighted one positive point following the Agricultural Council on 14 March: “decisions-makers finally understood that it is the European-wide overproduction that needs to be addressed”. The organisation regretted that “In order to do so, they want to use voluntary production cuts”. However, unfortunately the measures that were decided are only half-baked and have not been thought through”. According to the EMB, it is clear that measures aiming at increasing intervention volumes and selectively implemented production cuts “will not relieve the dramatic situation and thus not put a halt to price slumps”. The EMB says that the increase of production volumes in the coming months “will quickly neutralise the potential effect” that these EU measures could have. “These measures cannot put an end to the crisis on the dairy market”, claimed EMB-President Romuald Schaber. He explained that in Germany some farmers will only receive 21 cents/kg for the milk they sold in February. The EMB is demanding that volume management is coordinated at a centralised EU level. It also regretted the absence of caps on all producers during the voluntary production cuts.
European Coordination Via Campesina (ECVC) described these latests measures as a “farce”. According to this organisation, “The measures taken by the Council not only will not solve the problem of over-production, surplus and prices below production costs but can further aggravate the current situation”.
The ECVC said that not limiting production “in a collective and mandatory manner” may further encourage overproduction and create unfair competition between countries. It added that “Voluntary regulation entrusted on producer and interbranch organisations do not address” the problem. It also said that the situation was provoked by the EU's policies of eliminating market regulating instruments, such as milk quotas, and intervention prices. The ECVC advocates an immediate, compulsory and concerted cut in production (in the short term) and the introduction of a crisis prevention mechanism. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)