“The range of measures introduced by the Commission last year aimed at reducing the impact of the reduced milk price was very welcome,” said Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed. Speaking from Brussels, Creed was commenting on the EU Council of Ministers meeting that took place on Monday.

Meanwhile, farmers of the European Milk Board (EMB) were protesting against the sale of EU intervention milk powder. They called for the introduction of a permanent crisis instrument.

“Milk producers all over Europe are still in the throes of the crisis,” said Sieta van Keimpema, dairy farmer and vice-president of the EMB, in a speech directed at the ministers as well as the European Commission. “To increase the pressure at this juncture and offer milk powder from intervention on to the market is highly problematic. Even if during the last weeks you rejected extremely low price offers – a fact that we welcome – neither must milk from intervention be sold in the coming months.”

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Outlines of Europe and Africa were placed on the ground in front of the Council of the European Union building, with a telescopic handler used to spray milk powder down on them.

“Just as for Europe, it is devastating for African markets as well to be flooded with cheap milk powder from the EU,” Keimpema said.

Free trade agreeements

Discussions at the Council of Ministers meeting also focused on international trade and free trade agreements (FTA).

“Ireland supports trade liberalisation and recognises the benefits of trade agreements with third countries,” Creed said. “We also believe in taking a balanced approach, so that offensive and defensive interests are both addressed as comprehensively as possible.”

He added that Ireland harbours “grave reservations” in relation to Mercosur negotiations.

“I welcome again the publication of the Commission’s cumulative impact assessment, whose findings strongly reinforce Ireland’s position in relation to beef,” Creed said. “They represent a timely reminder of the need for great caution in our approach to the issue of beef tariff rate quota (TRQs).

“The treatment of sensitive products such as beef should be handled at an appropriately late stage of any negotiations, in contrast to the approach attempted last year in relation to the Mercosur negotiations.”

Tillage

In relation to the tillage sector, Creed said he “asked the Commission to address the significant overpricing of fertiliser in the EU brought about by the imposition of anti-dumping duties on imports”.

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