Brussels, 30/08/2002 (Agence Europe) - On a proposal from the European Commission, on Thursday the Cereals Management Committee officially authorised Austria to sell 31,000 tonnes of public cereals stocks to assist breeders who are short of supplies as a result of the floods. The sale price of the cereals - 5,000 tonnes of wheat, 6,700 t of rye, 14,400 t of barley and 4,500 t of maize - was set at € 50 a tonne. To guarantee that only those breeders who are flood victims will benefit from the measure, the interested parties will have to provide proof that they are mixing the cereals with at least 15% rye. The Austrian intervention body has set the date of 28 February 2003 as the deadline for delivery of the cereals. The Community budget will cover transport costs up to an average of € 10 a tonne.
The measure, estimated to cost the Community budget € 1.5 million, was in fact announced last week along with three others that have already been adopted: early payment of 50% of aid for arable crops in Germany, payment of an advance of € 300 million to farmers in southern Italy and authorisation for the use of set-aside land for grazing in Germany, Austria, the United Kingdom and Ireland (see details in EUROPE of 24 August, p.6).