Brussels, 08/09/2009 (Agence Europe) - The European agriculture ministers' debate on Monday 7 September on the crisis being experienced by milk and dairy producers brought traditional quarrels back to the surface (see EUROPE 9971). On one side, there is a group of 16 member states, led by Germany and France, which want new forms of regulation so that the dairy sector “does not depend solely on market rules”, and, on the other, so-called liberal countries (United kingdom, Denmark, Netherlands) which have protested against new management measures and against any change in quota policy. This policy provides for an annual 1% increase in quotas until 2015, when quotas will be ended.
Swedish Agriculture Minister and current Chairman of the Agriculture Council Eskil Erlandsson said at the press conference that “most of my Council colleagues” agree with the market analysis by the European Commission contained in its report of 22 July. A large number of states feel that the Commission text “is not as exhaustive as it might be” with regard to measures which may be implemented, he went on. He noted that ministers had stressed the importance of abiding by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) health check. He said that the Special Committee on Agriculture (SCA) would carefully consider the measures contained in the Commission report and also “the alternative measures spoken of today”.
Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel was critical in particular of the group of six countries which called (in a joint statement signed by the Austrian, French, German, Hungarian, Portuguese and Slovakian ministers) for a temporary suspension in the rise in milk quotas. What they were suggesting “would contradict the decisions of the CAP health check and, thus, would contradict the conclusions of the European Council of 18 and 19 June,” she said. It would, she said, mean a complete U-turn. The latest data have shown the appearance on the market of the first “green shoots” of improvement in the situation. Prices are improving, but there must be no let-up in effort.
Some countries called for greater flexibility in the policy. “I do not think we have made full use of the possibilities for flexibility,” Fischer Boel said. She was critical of most of the measures contained in the statement by the 16 member states which want “new strong measures”: - an increase in export refunds for butter, milk powder and cheese: “I would like someone to explain to me how, then, to avoid any form of market distortion,” said the commissioner; - an increase in the intervention price: “Out of the question,” responded Fisher Boel, since, if this was done, “we run the risk of encouraging some farmers to turn to this kind of production”; - re-introduction of aid for use of skimmed milk and powdered milk in animal feeds: “That would be a waste. We would have to pay not only for the new quantities that would appear, but also for the quantities that are already there”. The commissioner also turned down Italy's request for aid for the storage of cheese.
German minister Ilse Aigner, who is in the middle of the general election campaign in her own country, left the meeting very unhappy. She spoke of “a failure of the European Union”, complaining that the Commission had rejected every proposal. “It is impossible to understand why there is no room for manoeuvre,” she lamented. “EU farm ministers' failure to make a decision meant that the disastrous situation facing EU dairy farmers will continue,” commented farmers' organisations COPA and COGECA. (L.C./transl.rt)