Only Three EU Member States Exceed Milk Quotas
Denmark, the Netherlands and Cyprus were the only EU Member States which exceeded their milk quotas in the 2009/2010 quota year, triggering superlevy fines totalling Eur19m. This compares with the Eur99m triggered last year and Eur340m the previous year.
Following the increase in quotas agreed under the 2008 CAP Health Check, Italian production finished within quota for the first time, as global EU production finished some 7% below global quota volumes, compared with the 4.2% margin in the 2008/09 quota year (April-March).
“Although these figures confirm that Italy has finally managed to stay within its quota, the 2009/2010 quota year will only be remembered for the particularly difficult market situation witnessed in so many Member States,” comments Dacian Cioloş, Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development: “Through our High Level Group established specifically to examine the market crisis, we have studied the situation carefully, and I am optimistic that the proposals that I will present in December will enable dairy producers to respond better to evolutions in the market and provide a more stable environment as we move towards the end of the quota regime in 2015.”
The Netherlands and Denmark exceeded their ‘deliveries’ quota by 0.4%, and Cyprus by 0.3%, triggering fines of Eur13.03m, Eur5.68m and Eur125,000 respectively. The Netherlands also overran its direct sales quota by some 2 268 tonnes, resulting in a further levy on direct sales of Eur631 000. Based on Member State annual declarations, all other 24 Member States were within their quotas.
Although decisions in 2008 (quota increase and changes in the fat correction system) increased the scope for production considerably in 2009/2010, an increase in deliveries was only registered in 10 Member States (Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Germany, Spain, Luxemburg, Malta, the Netherlands, Austria and Finland). In fact, global deliveries were down 0.6% – reflecting the difficult market situation – with a decrease of more than 2% in 11 Member States (Czech Republic, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, France, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Sweden). After fat correction, deliveries in 15 Member States (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Finland, Sweden and United Kingdom) were at least 10% below their national quota.
