On Wednesday 22 April, the European Commission announced that it had agreed to mobilise additional aid, particularly for the private storage of milk and meat for farmers whose businesses are suffering from the negative effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Commission “proposes additional exceptional measures to further support the most affected agricultural and food markets”, says a statement.
By the end of April, the Commission intends to approve private storage measures for dairy products (cheese, milk powder and butter) and meat (beef, sheep and goat meat) and measures to make the sectoral programmes (fruit and vegetables, wine, olive oil and beekeeping) more flexible so that funds can be redirected towards crisis management.
The Commission has also proposed introducing temporary derogations from competition law by allowing ‘crisis cartels’ to be created in the milk, flower and potato sectors.
Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski said that the proposed measures are “intended to send a signal aimed at stabilising markets”. He says he is “confident” that these measures will relieve markets, and show concrete results rapidly.
Private storage. This scheme will allow the temporary withdrawal of products from the market for a minimum of 2 to 3 months, and a maximum period of 5 to 6 months. This measure will lead to a decrease of available supply on the market.
Flexibility in sectoral programmes. The Commission will introduce flexibility in the implementation of the market support programmes for wine, fruit and vegetables, olive oil, apiculture, and the distribution scheme for schools (milk, fruit and vegetables). This will allow funding priorities to be redirected towards crisis management measures for the sectors in question.
Competition. For certain sectors (milk, flowers and potatoes), the Commission will authorise a derogation from certain competition rules (article 222 of the regulation establishing common market organisation) to allow operators to adopt “self-organisation” measures.
In practical terms, these sectors will be allowed to take ‘collective’ measures to stabilise the market (collective planning of milk production or withdrawal of products from the market). Storage by private operators will also be allowed. These agreements and decisions will be valid for a maximum period of six months.
The EU countries have not yet approved the package of market measures, which should come into force by the end of April.
To read the Commission’s press release, go to: https://bit.ly/2VKuuJg (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)