Meat industry reacts to EU emergency aid
On Monday 14 March, EU farm ministers told the European Commission to devise a range of detailed measures to help the struggling meat industry, with the pork sector said by Copa-Cogeca to be “bleeding”.
The measures proposed by agriculture commissioner Phil Hogan include the implementation of private storage aid for pork and the establishment of a Meat Market Observatory – a body that will monitor Europe’s beef and pork industry, like the Milk Market Observatory.
The move has been welcomed by EU farming group Copa-Cogeca, but meat bodies including the UK’s National Pig Association and the European Livestock and Meat Trading Union (UECBV) have voiced mixed opinions.
Pork ‘oversupply’
The chief executive of the UK’s National Pig Association Dr Zoë Davies said: “We were not particularly impressed with the measures that were announced by the Commission on Tuesday, however we accept that there will be limits to what can be done, especially as this situation is as a result of oversupply in the EU.
“The focus should be on helping countries to promote pork better so that the decline in consumption is reversed. [We need to] find export markets and open them quickly, and to explore options for reducing over-production in EU countries.”
On the drive to open new export markets for the EU’s meat industry, the secretary general of the UECBV, Jean-Luc Mériaux, told GlobalMeatNews it would take years before new markets could deliver positive results for the sector.
Focus on Cuba
“UECBV welcomes all the efforts to identify new markets, including the trade missions and the increase of the allocation for the agricultural products and food promotion outside the EU that reflect the market disturbances in the dairy and meat sectors,” said the secretary general.
“UECBV expects these efforts to continue beyond 2016 and suggests priorities in terms of countries, such as Cuba. However, these measures are not new, but refocused. They are needed, but will deliver positive outcomes in the coming years, not months. The export credit should be an efficient tool that will complement the national schemes and allow the EU operators to be more competitive on international markets.”
On plans to reintroduce the short-lived private storage aid, Mériaux added: “Concerning the private storage aid (PSA) scheme, UECBV supports this market mechanism and promoted its use in the context of the pork crisis. The implementation of this tool in January 2016 has been efficient in terms of price stability thanks to the increase of the rate level, the extension of the eligible products list and the flexibility for the duration. The success of the last scheme depended also on the timing of its introduction. For the time being, the conditions for appropriate timing are not met and should not be met in the short term.”
