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IFA president Tim Cullinan has dismissed an expected EU aid package as “underwhelming” before the final details are published.
Cullinan will confer with other farm leaders from across Europe before an address by European Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski on Wednesday.
As revealed by the Irish Farmers Journal on Tuesday, it is expected that the commissioner will outline details of a proposed package to support EU markets through private storage aid for dairy and meat.
“While the package has yet to be published, our office in Brussels understands that the proposal will acknowledge the difficulties, but it will be decidedly underwhelming in terms of the allocation of funding,” Cullinan said.
Abysmal
“The response from the agriculture commissioner to date has been abysmal. We look forward to hearing more details tomorrow. However, we are deeply concerned that it’s insufficient to address what is now a serious crisis in the beef sector and a developing one on the dairy side,” he said.
The IFA’s Brussels director Liam MacHale said IFA has been working closely with other European farm organisations and COPA.
“This is a European-wide crisis affecting every country and every sector. The initial emphasis was on keeping the sector open and food and inputs moving across borders. But the focus now has to be to support markets and farmers, as certain markets have been decimated,” he said.
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