As reported last week, the chairman of the European Parliament's Agriculture Committee, Norbert Lins (EPP, DE) and most of the committee's political groups sent a letter to Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski, asking the European Commission to take “immediate initiatives aimed to alleviate the negative situation and anticipate serious disturbances in the pig meat sector”.
In response to this request, the European Commissioner for Agriculture, Janusz Wojciechowski, wanted to explain why the Commission is opposed and answered that, despite the fact that 13 Member States have requested market measures, 7 Member States, including the main producing countries, such as Germany, Spain, Italy, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and Finland, which represent almost two-thirds of EU pig production, have not requested market measures and that "this is a clear signal and a signal I cannot ignore."
Wojciechowski advocated that state aid is an effective tool and gave examples such as the current aid package launched last week by France totaling 270 million euros and that of Poland, which has announced a state aid package of 88 million euros.
The Commissioner also highlighted that 13 Member States have requested Article 219 - measures against market disturbances but stressed that an urgent and rapid measure in 2022 would have to be realistically financed by mobilizing part of the agricultural crisis reserve of 497.3 million euros, subject to approval by the European Parliament and the Council. Consequently, this amount could not be reimbursed to farmers in 2023. In the end, it will be the farmers who finance the measure.
PigUA.info by materials pig333.com