Europe Levy Milk Over-Production Fines

BRUSSELS - Oct 3/06 - SNS -- The European Union is fining nine member states Euros 376 million for producing 1.217 million metric tons (MT) more milk than they are allowed.

The states include: Czech Republic, Germany, Spain, Italy, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Austria, Poland, and Portugal. Italy, Poland and Germany account for over 90% of the over-production. However, the levy for Poland, which provisionally stands at Euros 91 million, is likely to be substantially reduced through the conversion of unallocated direct sales quota to delivery quota.

As for direct sales to consumers, for which the total quota is 2 million MT, only Spain and the Netherlands reported overruns, totalling 2,600 MT resulting in a levy on direct sales of Euros 800,000.

For the period 2005-06 the total quota for deliveries to dairies was 135.5 million MT. This is divided into 880,387 individual quotas for the whole of the European Union. There is a separate quota of 2 million MT for direct sales to consumers, divided up into 107,000 individual quotas.

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