Demands for freeze on milk quotas likely to be rejected by commission

DEMANDS from France and Germany that milk quotas be frozen or cut are expected to be rejected by the European Commission today.

Reports from Brussels yesterday quoted from a leaked document which stated that quota system changes would not respect the outcome of decisions taken to adapt the Common Agriculture Policy to confront the sector’s needs.

German agriculture minister Ilse Aigner and her French counterpart, Bruno Le Marie, insisted in a letter to Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel that the dairy sector could not be left to depend on the vagaries of the market.