No EU reprieve on superlevy penalties for overproduction

There was no reprieve at this week’s EU Agriculture Council meeting for member states in danger of exceeding their national milk quotas.

Ten of the EU’s 28 members sought relief measures, with the German, Polish, Dutch, Austrian, Irish, Danish, Latvian, Estonian, Belgian and Luxembourg delegations proposing that superlevy penalties linked to milk overproduction be reduced.

However, a number of other delegations were opposed to this “soft landing” approach, saying that the rules defined in 2008 for the ending of EU milk quotas should be strictly applied, in order to avoid distortion of competition within the EU. Ireland was represented at the meeting by Department of Agriculture Secretary General Tom Moran.