RED DEER- The expected addition of six new members to the European Union in 2003 is stirring up an already uncertain European dairy industry.
Alison Burrell, from the University of Wageningen in The Netherlands, says the EU is worried about the cost of carrying farmers in new member countries like Poland, Romania, Hungary or Bulgaria.
“They are all very poor countries,” Burrell told a recent western Canadian dairy seminar.
These nations rely heavily on agriculture, she said, but the farms are small and technologically behind the rest of Europe. Supporting them to the same level as other farmers in the EU could be a strain.
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She also said if the new countries entered now, their prices would rise significantly, which would likely
drive up milk output.
Some EU members are rethinking the equal payment policy for new members, even though there is supposed to be a common agriculture policy.
“The idea of a common policy is really evaporating.”
The EU’s dairy industry is already being squeezed by outside pressure for it to lower government support, which includes tariffs, intervention buying of butter and skim milk powder, supply quotas, direct farmer payments and export subsidies.
The EU spends 10 percent of its agricultural support program on dairy support payments, which amount to 57 percent of gross returns.
