COAG denounces the "new" Brussels that slows the private storage of olive oil
on April 15, 2011
In view of the agrarian organization, nothing has served the Commissioner of education provide any additional information required on his last visit to Spain, to justify the decision to allow the storage. He has not served that other countries support Spain, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Poland, Cyprus and France. This position of the Management Committee in contrast to the 'agility' with which the requests from countries with greater ability to influence, are addressed as Germany or France (so, for example, with the activation of the private storage of pigmeat).
Faced with this situation, agricultural and cooperative organizations continue to work in the planning of the third manifestation of the calendar, which will gather today 15 April, in Toledo, thousands of growers of all Spain-producing areas. COAG encourages all producers to participate in massive and strong so that the voice of the sector is heard more strongly in Brussels.
The situation of prices in origin continues to be dramatic. For the third consecutive year, the average prices are below production costs: the average price just has passed in the last month the 1.84 euros/kg, according to Poolred, while the accumulated costs of oil of olive oil mill output are 2,491 EUR/kg, as is clear from the Observatory of prices of food of the MARM. Currently, the threshold that activates the private storage is 1.77 EUR/tonne of oil extra virgin olive and INE EUR/tonne for Virgin oil and 1.52 for the lampante, prices far removed from the costs of the sector and set in 1997/98. The update, at least to a level of 2.20 EUR/kg is required to reflect the increase in production costs and the mechanism provided to be truly operational and useful for the purpose for which it was established.
In addition, the system relies on the will of the Commission and the Member States to put in place while achieving the levels of prices set by the Community regulations. This fact, in the view of COAG, must be amended in such a way that will serve as a strong automatic activation so that the improvement of the market situation is immediate and does not depend on political decisions in which the Mediterranean countries are in the minority.
