European Commission takes series of countermeasures following Russian food embargo

MEP Alfred Sant has taken the European Comission to task over whether it has any plans to counter the Russian embargo on agricultural impports.

This summer, Russia banned all meat, fish, dairy, fruit and vegetable imports from the EU, the US Norway, Canada, and Australia for one year to retaliate against Western sanctions on Moscow over the Ukraine crisis.

In its reply to Sant’s questions, the European Commission said that it has adopted a series of measures against market disturbance following the Russian trade embargo.

Sant asked if the Commission could ensure that when such countermeasures are being considered in the dairy, pig meat, beef and poultry sectors, appropriate support will also be considered and extended to producer and processor small and medium businesses in islands and peripheral regions of the Union.

The Maltese MEP also asked whether the Commission could consider the fact that these SMEs are already in a precarious financial position due to problems of insularity and/or diseconomies of scale, and will be adversely (quite likely fatally under the prevailing economic conditions) affected by intra‐Community surges of food imports towards their local markets from other EU destinations in the aforementioned sectors, at price levels which they have no hope of meeting.

In relation to the dairy sector, the Commission said it has adopted a package of four measures: opening private storage aid for butter and skimmed milk powder; extending the intervention period for butter and skimmed powder, and opening a private storage aid scheme for certain cheeses.

The cheese private storage aid measure had to be stopped on 23 September for disproportionate use by cheese producers from areas not traditionally exporting significant quantities of cheese to Russia. The other dairy market stabilisation measures remain in place until the end of the year.

The Commission said these measures are available to all operators, including small and medium enterprises  in all EU Member States including their islands and peripheral regions. The EC said  specific measures for SMEs in island and peripheral regions are not foreseen.

In the meat sector, the Commission has not intervened as the market impact is less severe so far. However, the Commission is closely monitoring market developments for all products concerned and is ready to put in place additional appropriate measures if necessary to stabilise these markets.