Brussels, 24/05/2016 (Agence Europe) - In Brussels on Tuesday 24 May, European Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan and the MEPs on the European Parliament's agriculture committee once again debated the crisis hitting a number of sectors without, however, producing any new ideas on how to improve the situation.
A hearing on the future of the milk sector is due to take place on Wednesday evening 25 May and, in plenary session on Thursday 26 May, the Commission will again give a response to an oral question on the agricultural crisis. Yet it is unlikely that either of these events will bring new information or new ideas to ease the difficulties.
During the structured dialogue (the second) with the members of the Parliament agriculture committee, Hogan announced nothing new, or almost. He merely indicated that he was going to increase the ceilings for intervention measures (dairy products) which have almost been reached, even though they were doubled (to 218,000 tonnes) not long ago. He pointed out the difficult situation in the milk sector (production rose by 5% in March) and argued that supply had to be “reduced”. He acknowledged that the Article 222 measure (voluntary reduction of milk production) had been given a mixed reception but called on farmers to make use of this option. He said, too, that he had used all the instruments at his disposal in the common agricultural policy (CAP) to manage the crisis. Several MEPs, such as Albert Dess (EPP, Germany), called for compulsory Community measures to be agreed to encourage farmers to reduce production levels.
Hogan was somewhat impatient with those countries which have not spent their allocation of targeted aid (€420 million) from September 2015. Eight countries have not spent a penny of it, he stated. At the end of April, 56% of the credits (of the €420 million) had been used when countries only had until the end of June to spend that money. Paolo De Castro (S&D, Italy) called for a review of crisis instruments and amendment of the rules on the greening of aid to make the measures more effective and with less bureaucracy. Martin Haüsling (Greens/EFA, Germany) said that the EU ought to say “no” to the trade agreements with the United States (TTIP) and the Mercosur countries. Hogan restated his criticism of the lack of progress on TTIP (he was critical of the US for not making any concessions on geographical indications or on removing non-tariff barriers). Turning to Mercosur, he confirmed that beef and ethanol were not part of the talks. The study on the impact of the trade agreements on the agricultural sector will be available in September, he said,
New second deputy chair of agriculture committee. As Janusz Wojciechowski (ECR, Poland) has been appointed to the European Court of Auditors (see EUROPE 11537), Parliament's agriculture committee decided on Tuesday 24 May to name a new second deputy chair. Zbigniew Kuzmiuk (ECR, Poland) was elected by acclamation. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)