Lymec-PM: Don’t get scared by tractors and angry dairy producers (06. Oktober 2009)
Yesterday several thousands of dairy farmers were present in Brussels to put pressure agricultural ministers meeting. There is a crisis in the dairy sector and the meeting was called to informally discuss the situation: following a peak in milk prices in mid-2008, prices have dropped by 40%, reaching their lowest level since 1992. EU-Commissioner for agriculture Mariann Fischer Boel declared after the meeting that there would be 'no rolling back on the health check'.
LYMEC President Aloys Rigaut stated: "We are not scared by dairy farmers coming to Brussels to protest and creating havoc. We believe that the current attempt from the liberal Commissioner Marian Fischer Boel to liberalize the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is the path that we should continue to follow."
He continued: "Agricultural ministers decided at their meeting to create a high-level expert group to explore measures to aid the sector, but this will lead to nowhere and we cannot support such initiative. Instead we should focus on phasing out all subsidies and quotas, and the Commission should continue its investigations into the food chain. What we want is a competitive dairy market where consumers benefit from the fall of milk prices and where farmers receive a fair share of the retail milk price".
LYMEC bureau member, Mette Lykke Nielsen declared: "The French and German proposal to favour additional export subsidies would not be the answer to this crisis. We believe that in the long run, it will lead to unfair competition if some countries allow additional export subsidies. We need an equal playing field, in which supply and demand determine the prices, not government intervention or quotas".
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