EU states demand review of milk quota increase

Several EU member states have called on the EU Commission to re-examine the proposal to expand milk quota.

EU agriculture ministers from Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Slovenia have called for a freezing of the increase in the quota to be studied in line with the Council of Ministers discussions that formed the basis of the CAP Health Check compromise.

While they welcomed the decision by the Commission to raise dairy intervention prices and export subsidy levels to stabilise prices, they said these measures had not gone far enough.

Jackie Cahill, president of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA), accused the Irish Minister for Agriculture, Brendan Smith, of a dereliction of duty in refusing to support the growing number of member states demanding action.

It is significant that for the first time in this dairy crisis, some ministers have formally put forward proposals to raise the dairy intervention prices, Cahill said.

This would increase the price paid to farmers as opposed to merely stopping the income collapse, and those ministers are supporting increasing the scope and scale of export refunds which are vital to the Irish dairy sector, Cahill said.