EU unlikely to scrap super-levy now, says ICMSA

The ICMSA’s Pat McCormack has said he is not confident the EU would immediately drop the super-levy system following the market disturbances created by Russia’s ban on EU imports.

Mr McCormack, the ICMSA’s deputy president and chairman of the group’s dairy committee, was responding to a call by Mairead McGuinness MEP for the system to be scrapped.

He said that while he understood Ms McGuinness’s arguments and saw the obvious benefits for Irish farmers in an over-quota situation, he would not be confident the EU would move to set aside a system scheduled to end, in any case, in just over six months. He said even before the Russian ban there was already a deep-rooted conviction among a number of EU states not to relax the quota regime.