During a visit to the livestock fair in Clermont-Ferrand, France, on Wednesday 5 October, European Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan announced his intention to launch a €15 million campaign to promote meat in the Community market.
The milk crisis and the measures that have been adopted to help counter it are having a damaging effect on the meat sector.
Copa-Cogeca (the farmers and agri-cooperative organisations in the EU) and France are calling for measures in addition to the €15 million for campaigns to encourage people to eat beef and veal. Copa-Cogeca suggests a number of possible avenues: food aid, by making it possible for beef and veal to be used in humanitarian crises; private storage, the only instrument that can be triggered usefully; export credits, including for live animals, as a complement to existing member state schemes. The French government has contacted the Commission to ask for exceptional market measures (storage for certain categories, outlets for humanitarian aid) to be put in place.
Hogan spoke of releasing credits for targeted campaigns with the aim of “dispelling certain myths” and “encouraging a return to the pleasure (of eating) high quality beef, lamb and pork”. He also said that he would visit Turkey in the coming months to promote exports of live animals.
Prices feeling impact of culling of dairy cows. No matter the type of animal, all beef prices have been falling on the European market for the last year (down between 1% and 11%). Prices are in decline in part because of the increase in European production (up 2% in the first half of 2016 compared with the same period in 2015). A further factor in the dip in prices is the effect of Brexit. The drop in the value of sterling has impacted on average EU prices expressed in euro.
Beef and free trade. Five MEPs from France, Spain, Ireland and Italy will hold a meeting in Brussels on 18 October with EU beef producers’ representatives. The meeting will be devoted to discussion of the impact of free trade on the sector. The attendance of European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström at the meeting is hoped for but is still to be confirmed.
In response to a parliamentary question, Hogan has stressed that beef “is considered to be a sensitive product” in EU trade deals. So, he says, in the agreement with Canada (CETA), the EU will guarantee duty-free access to 45,838 tonnes (carcass equivalent) to which will be added a tariff quota of 3,000 tonnes of bison meat. Lastly, the existing import quota under the WTO of 11,500 tonnes of Hilton beef (shared between Canada and the United States) will remain in place but the duty for Canada will drop to zero.
In negotiations with the United States (TTIP), beef is “also treated as a highly sensitive sector for which total liberalisation is not an option”, Hogan says, noting that exports from the US are roughly three times as great as those from Canada. The Commission, which will publish a study in the autumn of this year on the cumulative impact of the main trade agreements on the agricultural sector, also intends, Hogan says, “to launch a fresh sustainability impact assessment into the EU-Mercosur free-trade agreement being negotiated”. A negotiating round with the countries of the South American bloc is due to be held in Montevideo from 10 to 14 October. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)