Brussels, 23/02/2000 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has adopted its farm price package for 2000/2001, which essentially amounts to a rollover of existing arrangements. As most of the decisions were taken in the framework of the Agenda 2000 reform and reforms of the common organisation of markets, only a small number of sectors were concerned by the annual price-setting exercise.
As foreseen in Agenda 2000, the intervention price for cereals will be reduced in two steps, by 7.5% each time. The Commission has also proposed a reduction in monthly increments (linked to storage) from 1 euro/tonne/month to 0.93 euro for 2000/2001 and 0.85 euro beginning the following year. The Commission is further proposing that the intervention period for cereals in Sweden (which currently runs from 1 December to 30 June) should be aligned to the period applied in all other northern Member States (1 November to 31 May), to avoid the risk of diversion of cereals from other Member States into intervention in Sweden. Existing price levels are maintained for sugar, rice, pork and sheepmeat and for aid for silkworms.
As EUROPE has already announced, these proposals will result in savings of EUR 8 million for 2001. The second phase of reduction of the monthly increments is expected to bring this figure to 17 million for 2002.
In accordance with the decisions on Agenda 2000: (1) the intervention price for arable crops will fall from EUR 119.19 to 110.25; (2) direct aid for oilseeds will be EUR 81.74 per tonne; (3) the set-aside rate has been fixed at 10%; (4) additional aid for durum wheat remains unchanged; (5) the payment per tonne for protein crops will be EUR 72.5; (6) the compensatory payment per tonne for seed flax will be EUR 88.26; (7) the minimum price per tonne for potato starch falls from EUR 194.05 in 2000 to 178.31 from 2001 onwards.