EC MINISTERS BID TO SAVE DAIRY ACCORD
European Community (EC) farm ministers
were fighting hard early today to prevent a deal on cutting
overflowing milk production from turning sour before trying to
agree widescale reforms in other surplus sectors.
    Meanwhile, protests from angry European farmers over
successive attempts to scale down unwanted Community food
production appeared to be gathering strength.
    In the northeastern Spanish city of Saragossa thousands of
Spanish farmers battled with police during a march to demand a
better deal from Brussels.
    The farmers traded stones for tear gas and rubber pellets
and occupied local government buildings while in the southern
city of Malaga, citrus growers dumped more 20 tonnes of lemons
on the streets in protest at EC duties.
    Towards the end of last week, about 10,000 angry West
German farmers marched through the streets of Hanover burning
effigies of Agriculture Minister Ignaz Kiechle while in France
pig-farmers barricaded roads in protest at falling prices.
    Europe's 12 mln farmers are furious over plans by the
European Commission to cut subsidised prices and severely limit
farmers' automatic right to sell unwanted food into public
stores at high guaranteed EC prices.
    In the toughest-ever proposals for the annual price review,
at which EC ministers set the levels of subsidies, Agriculture
Commissioner Frans Andriessen has included measures that could
result in price cuts for some products of up to 11 pct.
    The plans form part of an on-going campaign to reform
surplus-creating farm policies that have become a political
embarrassment at home and commercial flash-point abroad and
threatened to leave the Community with no cash for other areas.
    Andriessen's latest package comes only months after a
decision to cut dairy production by 9.5 pct over two years and
to slash beef prices by around 10 pct.
    That decision, agreed in outline last December after
virtually nine days of non-stop negotiations, was hailed as the
most significant step yet in the reform offensive, but has
since run into difficulties over the fine print.
    West Germany and Ireland are objecting to the new rules
governing the sales of surplus butter into cold stores, but the
Commission is loathe to abandon its position as the accord has
been used as the inspiration for Andriessen's latest package.
    Ministers failed yesterday to overcome the problem, and
resumed negotiations in a bid to finalise the details before
starting the price review which is confidently predicted to
last many months.
    EC farm spending currently swallows two thirds of an
overall annual budget of around 40 billion dlrs and is almost
entirely blamed for a projected budget shortfall later this
year of some 5.7 billion dlrs.
 Reuter
