Dacian CIOLOS, European Commissioner for Agriculture, presents a legislative proposal regarding contractual relations in the milk sector in an extraordinary meeting of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development (AGRI) in the European Parliament in Brussels.

Brussels

meeting

TARABELLA, Marc (NI, BE)

NICHOLSON, James (ECR, UK)

DANTIN, Michel (EPP, FR)

milk quotas (T)

CIOLOŞ, Dacian (Renew, RO)

Single CMO Regulation - milk and milk products sector: extracts from the meeting

SOUNDBITE (French), Dacian CIOLO&#350;, European Commissioner for Agriculture, We still have in our mind the images during the milk crises in 2009 when the milk producers had a difficult phase. the proposal that I come here to present you this morning aims to drown the lessons from that crises and its also aims to analyse the situation now and the situation in the immediate future for this sector.

SOUNDBITE (French), Dacian CIOLO&#350;, European Commissioner for Agriculture, We must see the realities on the field , what se see is that there are more than 950.000 producers against 5.400 processors. So that the balance that we can see o the grown and I think we need told be able to provide instruments that let the farmers can get organised and get a proper price.

SOUNDBITE (French), Dacian CIOLO&#350;, European Commissioner for Agriculture, We want producers to be able to negotiate contacts with processors organisations or processors. We are suggesting that a producers organisation can be set up to negotiate contracts for up to 3,5% of total milk production of the Union, but also not more than 33% of the national production. We've taken 3,5% of the Union total production, because the biggest processing private processor of milk in the EU represent about 3,5% of total European milk production. I'm not talking cooperatives here; I'm talking about private companies. We've also got this limit of 33% of national production to be concentrated in one producers organisation, so that there is to a minimum of competition possible o a given national market. Otherwise there might be accusations that this proposal encourages monopolies to form.

SOUNDBITE (English), James NICHOLSON (ECR, UK), rapporteur, One of the greatest problems that is facing to the dairy sectors and not only on the dairy sector but also in other sectors in agriculture is the volatility in the market, and anything we can do to stabilise the market can certainly be very advantageous. But we also got to be aware of what we in Europe have a very major role to play in the future of the dairy industry , what happened in the worlds market, this market is ugly and piggish and hostile too , so we must be conscious of that in the future".

SOUNDBITE (French), Michel DANTIN (EPP, FR), We have to see the figures that you give us 3,5% on the European market and 33% on the national level . Will those figures be sufficient to have a true say as we know that o the other side the big distribution is shared between 5 or 6 main groups which are making heavy pressures to the processors.

SOUNDBITE (French), Marc TARABELLA (S&amp;D, BE), We have to also say that 6% of the world production milk fix the world price , and this 6% of the produced milk , and this is not fair. This happening over the EU and I wish to have our say at the world level, we have to make our pressures and eventually - we can dream about - to forbid all the speculations on any food market.