Fines of €15m for quota breach
Superlevy fines totalling about €15m, of 28.68c per litre, will be paid by dairy farmers in co-ops and dairies which finished the EU production year over quota. That includes the biggest groups like Glanbia and Dairygold, but sources at Kerry Agribusiness indicate they have stayed within their annual quota, with butterfat adjusted deliveries of milk at the end of March estimated to be 14m litres under quota.
Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney said the final figures will be confirmed at the end of May. Co-ops and dairies are required to forward a statement to the department for each milk producer, showing the quantity and fat content of their milk delivered for the quota year, no later than May 15.
Mr Coveney said: “While this end of year figure is still only an estimate, it appears that farmers have made substantial efforts over recent weeks to manage their supplies. The current position represents a significant improvement in production management since last January, when the estimated milk quota position was 1.63% over quota.”
The 0.94% over quota position continues a downward trend from December of last year. This is mainly attributed to unfavourable weather in the first quarter of this year, as well as better management by farmers of their supplies.
Nationally, quota has been exceeded despite estimated butterfat adjusted deliveries in March coming in about seven million litres under the 2013 level.
Meanwhile, EU sources have confirmed that although milk quotas will be scrapped at the end of March next year, the system of collecting and paying the ‘superlevy’ penalties will stay in place.
At this week’s EU council of agriculture ministers, Austria questioned the legality of collecting and paying ‘super-levy’ penalties after quotas have expired.
But the EU Council’s legal service took the view that regulations should be interpreted in the sense that the provisions covering the milk quota system will continue to apply to recovery and payment of the levy paid by farm-ers on surplus milk after March 31, 2015.
The lawyers backed the European Commission’s interpretation of the rules, after the Austrian delegation requested a clarification on the legal basis for payment of the levy. Several other delegations had also questioned the legal basis of the superlevy after March 2015.
Requests to reduce the penalties for those countries who risk exceeding their national milk quotas — for example, by adjusting butterfat correction co-efficients — were repeated this week in Brussels. However, other member states were opposed and called for the rules set in 2008 for the end of the quota regime to be applied strictly, to avoid a distortion of competition between member states.
