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Protest against the EU Commission’s dairy sector policy

The protests against the current EU-milk policy, which have been started by dairy farmers from the western european countries like France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Italie, Austria and Switzerland are now extending to eastern Europe. In a petition scores of organisations of the dairy sector have vehemently protested against the current milk policy of the European Commission and declared their disposition to join Europes' demonstrations

Serious and long lasting depression of dairy sector due to low market prices can be observed in practically all Member States over this year, while EU Commission took slow and light measures to help milk producers out of this situation.

We protest against Marian Fisher Boel’s communication saying that milk price stabilization after one and half year long negative trend is a significant success. Actions taken by the Commission does not seem to be working well! Furthermore, the current EU Commission is not planning to take any considerable measures that could have perceptible impact on the market price and has been unwilling to discuss the proposals of the Member States. Milk prices have not reached even 75% of production cost since several months and the prospects are rather discouraging.  Loss making due to low prices have pushed thousands of families related to dairy production into a futureless situation.

We protest against the Commission’s policy that market disturbance should be resolved mainly by Member States. Experiences of the last couple of months show clearly that milk market crisis cannot be solved by Member States individually.

We protest against that supermarkets abuse their buying power to force down market prices. The Commission’s efforts to regulate supermarkets have been ineffective so far. International food retail chains can be found in every Member States, therefore only cross border actions of the Commission might have influence on their activities.

We express our concern about the hopeless situation of all dairy farmers in every Member State and our willingness to join them in common demonstrations in order to make pressure on the Commission.

Kaposvár, 25th of September 2009.

Hungarian Breeders Association        

Holstein Breeders Association         

Simmental Breeders Association        

Concentrate Milk Producers Association

Union of Cooperatives                         

Milk Board

The European Association of Simmental Breeders expresses its solidalrity about the demonstration of Hungarian dairy farmers.


Dr. Josef Kucera president        Dr. Georg Röhrmoser secretary

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