Protests to escalate across the EU

FARMER protests are set to escalate across Europe, after the only decision taken by agriculture ministers in Brussels, was to give a panel of experts nine months to report back on the dairy crisis.

Irish farmers are taking to the streets in force again, with 29 tractor protests across the country next Monday, recalling the 2003 protest led by IFA president, John Dillon, when 1,500 tractors converged on Dublin city centre.

Munster IFA vice-president Sean O’Leary said farmers face a winter of cash shortages while trying to provide for their families and keep their businesses afloat, and the “tractorcade” is part of IFA’s national campaign for equity and fairness.

Even more furious are Continental farmers, with 2,400 bringing Brussels to a standstill on Monday. They are now likely to resume a milk supply strike, despite EU agriculture commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel’s warning that they are damaging trade diplomacy with developing countries by dumping millions of litres of milk. The head of the COPA-Cogeca European farmers’ federation, Ireland’s Padraig Walshe, said EU dairy farmers will lose €14bn in turnover this year, without extra help.

Ms Fischer Boel said it was not possible this week to make any new proposals to support the dairy sector, because the ministers’ meeting was informal.

Ministers meet formally 11 days from now. With ministers from 20 of the 27 EU member states, including France and Germany, backing new regulations to lift dairy markes, farmers will highlight their demands with protest actions in the meantime.

The 20 ministers can overcome qualified majority voting hurdles, said Belgian agriculture minister, Sabine Laruelle. However, Ms Fischer Boel has indicated that fresh funding for new market regulations will not be forthcoming. “I’d be happy if member states would give me another €5bn for the dairy sector, but that requires also that the German government is ready to pay,” she said. Germany is the biggest contributor to the EU budget.

She said member states are already allowed by temporary crisis arrangements to pay struggling farmers state aid of up to €15,000 each.

She welcomed price rises of 9%, in three months, for butter and skimmed milk powder. In Ireland, sources in AIB have predicted recovery over the next 12 to 18 months, to reasonable returns for dairy farmers, and food and agri-business group, Origin Enterprises, expects dairy prices to start recovering around March of next year.