Luxembourg, 23/10/2001 (Agence Europe) - During Tuesday's Agriculture Council in Luxembourg, European Commissioner for Agriculture Franz Fischler gave a presentation of the situation on the beef and veal market. After his presentation, several Member States including France, Spain, Ireland, Luxembourg and Belgium, called on the Commission to extend beyond 31 December 2001 the special purchasing system for destruction or storage of bovines of over thirty months. Some felt the beef intervention criteria should be made more flexible. This would make it possible to relieve the congestion on the beef and veal market and address the fall in income for farmers in this sector.
Mr Fischler insisted on the fact that the prices of carcasses had considerably fallen over recent weeks, while consumer demand tends to be climbing slowly (-5.7% today compared to the same period last year). Concerning market support measures, the Commissioner specified that: - intervention stocks are currently at 241,000 tonnes in the EU (including 76,000 in France, 62,000 in Spain, 52,000 in Germany and 36,000 in Italy); - the purchasing system for destruction has allowed some 240,000 tonnes to be removed from the market; - the special purchasing system (which replaces the previous system as of June 2001) has begun to work well, since 88,861 tonnes of meat have been accepted under this scheme, mainly from Ireland, France, Germany and Spain. The German Federal Minister for Agriculture, Renate Künast, explained that the special purchasing system (Ed.: which authorised storage rather than the automatic destruction of meat) was very badly perceived by public opinion and that it was detrimental to the image of agriculture. Mr Fischler replied that German livestock farmers had not hesitated to take advantage of the very low level of national prices to make massive exports to other countries.
Mr Fischler stressed that the situation was improving on the side of export outlets (77% are made up of exports to Russia). He mainly welcomed the decision by the Egyptian authorities to gradually open up Egypt's market to the Member States, which is mainly of interest to the Irish.