Five EU Member States Exceed Milk Quota

19 Oct 2011

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According to national declarations, Denmark, the Netherlands, Austria, Cyprus and Luxembourg exceeded their national quotas by a total of almost 200,000 tons.

Oct 19 2011 --- Five Member States - Denmark, the Netherlands, Austria, Cyprus and Luxembourg - exceeded their dairy quotas in 2010/2011, resulting in a super levy of about €55.57 million. Despite the overrun of the quotas in these Member States, total EU production remained well below the total quota volume.

Dacian Ciolo?, Commissioner for Agriculture & Rural Development, said: "Even though the decision to end the quota regime in 2015 was taken in 2008, Member States must still apply the rules. In order to address the medium to long term concerns of producers, the Commission made proposals last December to address structural issues in the dairy sector. Last week's CAP reform proposals also contain various elements of flexibility which will help respond to concerns for the future."

Following the decisions taken in the framework of the 2008 CAP Health Check, quotas were increased by 1% in the year 2010/2011. However, according to national declarations, Denmark, the Netherlands, Austria, Cyprus and Luxembourg exceeded their national quotas by a total of almost 200,000 tons.

Denmark and the Netherlands exceeded both their quota for deliveries to dairies and their direct sales quota, while the other Member States exceeded only their quota for deliveries.
Several of the other Member States which respected their quota produced far below their respective national quota; 14 Member States recorded deliveries at least 10% below their quota.

For the quota year 2010/2011, overall EU production was 6% below the total EU quotas.

Each Member State has two quotas, one for deliveries to dairies, the other one for direct sales to consumers. These quantities are broken down among producers (individual quotas) in each Member State.

Where there is an overrun in the national quota, a surplus levy – or "superlevy" - is payable in the Member State concerned by the producers in proportion to their contribution to the overrun during the quota year (1 April - 31 March). The levy is € 27.83 per 100kg of overrun. Each year before 1 September, the Member States must report to the Commission the results of the application of the milk quota scheme over the previous period. This notification must be in the form of a complete questionnaire containing all the data needed to calculate the surplus levy.