New man at EU brings no change on milk quotas

MILK producers hoping the new EU Commissioner might bring a change of heart on abolishing milk quotas will get no joy according to one commentator on the Brussels scene, writes Andrew Arbuckle.

Richard Wright told milk producers meeting in Glasgow yesterday that the new man, Dacian Ciolos, had firmly rejected milk quotas as a method for controlling the supply of milk.

Wright had attended Ciolos's first press conference in Brussels and said that he was very impressed with the width and depth of knowledge of the Romanian who still has to be officially confirmed in the new post.

"Quotas will be a thing of the past. They have never worked in controlling the supply of milk. We need a better system," Ciolos had stated.

Ciolos will face one of the major tasks of the EU in the coming three years with a new Common Agricultural Policy having to be hammered out by 2013. This has always been a major item on the EU agenda and has always led to last-minute deals being done by the agricultural ministers of all member states.

This time the job of bringing forward a new plan will be doubly difficult, said Wright. Not only are there are more member states but under a new political procedure, MEPs will also have bigger say in the final decision.

Wright said he was fairly sure the final outcome would see the total rejection of historic payments as a basis for paying subsidies as new member states had no base line for such a system. He predicted that support payments after 2013 would have to be area based.

Another to yesterday welcome the new top man in EU agriculture was MEP George Lyon who said that during the three-hour hearing Ciolos had acquitted himself well.

"He demonstrated an in-depth knowledge of the challenges facing farmers and showed real commitment to the fight for a sustainable future for the industry," said Lyon.