Farmers’ intervention hopes live on

Raising the price for public intervention is not appropriate, agriculture ministers were told last Monday by European Commission Vice President Jyrki Katainen, standing in at the Extraordinary Agriculture and Fisheries Council for Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan, absent due to illness.

Last Saturday, a European Commission spokesman said Commissioner Phil Hogan was in hospital with a stomach viral infection.

Mr Katainen said, “At a time when there is a clear market imbalance, increasing the price paid for public intervention will do nothing to restore market balance but would instead create an artificial outlet for EU dairy products. It would weigh on the EU competitiveness for the 10% of EU milk production that need to be exported,” .