EU allocates 0.5 billion euros of "emergency" money to bail out agriculture

On September 7, 2015, thousands of farmers from many EU countries demonstrated in Brussels, the capital of Belgium, where the EU headquarters is located, to protest against the sharp drop in agricultural prices.

According to reports, the European Commission announced on September 7, 2015 that it would allocate 0.5 billion million euros (about 0.557 billion US dollars) and implement a package of related measures to bail out agriculture. At present, the EU agriculture, especially the dairy industry is seriously troubled by low prices and cause widespread concern.

Amid rising protests from farmers and repeated "calls for help" from member states, the agriculture ministers of the 28 EU countries held a special meeting on the 7th to discuss countermeasures. European Commission Vice President Katainen announced after the meeting that the EU will provide farmers with 0.5 billion euros of support to ease the agricultural price crisis.

The European Commission stated that the rescue funds will be used to help farmers experiencing cash flow difficulties, stabilize markets and improve the operation of the supply chain. Catainen said that most of the funds will be distributed directly to member states in the form of "gift packages" to help the dairy industry tide over the crisis. The specific distribution ratio of this rescue fund in each member state has not yet been announced, but the European Commission emphasized that it will give priority to providing funding to some of the most severely affected countries under the principle of fairness.

As a supporting measure, the EU allows member states to pay farmers up to 70% of the advance payment from October 16. At the same time, the EU will also vigorously develop private processing and storage for the dairy and pork production industries. Other measures include opening up new markets, promoting agricultural exports, increasing export budgets, and speeding up the signing of new bilateral trade agreements with other countries.

However, the European Commission rejected the "price intervention" request made by some member states. Catainen said that price intervention cannot solve the current problem of disconnection between EU agricultural production and demand, and is not beneficial to the long-term development of EU agriculture.

For more than a year, farmers in EU member states, especially in Western European countries, have become increasingly difficult. As the EU's economic sanctions against Russia led to Russia's counter-sanctions, the EU's agricultural exports to Russia were greatly affected, with pork exports to Russia alone falling from 740000 tons in 2013 to 65000 tons in 2014, a drop of 91 per cent.

At the same time, with the weakening of external demand, the overproduction of agricultural products in the EU has led to lower prices. The abolition of the dairy quota system in the EU at the end of March 2015 has made this situation even worse. According to statistics from the European Commission, the price of raw milk in the EU fell by 20% in the year to June 2015.

Earlier on the 7th, thousands of farmers from several EU member states drove tractors to hold a large-scale protest outside the EU headquarters, demanding that the EU promptly introduce a rescue policy to subsidize farmers on the verge of bankruptcy.

According to the statement, the funds will be specifically used to help farmers solve the problem of short-term cash shortage, stabilize the market, and improve the supply chain of agricultural products.

2015/9/9 World Wide Web