`Ciolos: Storage Aid Would Be Nothing But an "Aspirin" - Olive Oil Times
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Ciolos: Storage Aid Would Be Nothing But an "Aspirin"

By Julie Butler
Apr. 1, 2011 11:30 UTC

The European Commission has called on the Spanish cen­tral and regional gov­ern­ments to address struc­tural prob­lems in the coun­try’s olive oil sec­tor and has again rejected calls for the imme­di­ate pro­vi­sion of pri­vate stor­age aid.

In Spain today, European Commissioner for Agriculture Dacian Cioloş said that unless the struc­tural prob­lems were addressed, ​“we’re going to face the same prob­lem every year.” Introducing EC pay­ments for the pri­vate stor­age of olive oil with­out simul­ta­ne­ously address­ing these issues would amount to tak­ing an aspirin. Later, the prob­lem would still per­sist, ​“which is why it is nec­es­sary to treat it in a more com­pre­hen­sive and seri­ous way,” he said.

Cioloş accepted that prices were low in Spain, ​“but they remain above the level which would per­mit inter­ven­tion,” he said. However, he did ask for Spanish offi­cials to pro­vide more proof to back their claim that a mar­ket dis­tur­bance existed and pri­vate aid should be intro­duced. A deci­sion would be taken at an EC man­age­ment coun­cil meet­ing on April 13th, he said.

Cioloş was speak­ing in Madrid before a meet­ing with Spain’s Minister of Environment, Rural and Marine Affairs, Rosa Aguilar, on the future of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy. Aguilar told reporters that mea­sures were already in place and start­ing to pro­duce results in address­ing the olive oil sec­tor’s struc­tural prob­lems.

“We will imme­di­ately pro­vide the com­mis­sioner with all the infor­ma­tion nec­es­sary to show that we are actively address­ing the sit­u­a­tion in a sec­tor that is of great impor­tance to Spain and the European Union. ​“We have the ingre­di­ents ready to present the man­age­ment coun­cil with com­pelling infor­ma­tion so it can see the efforts being made address the sec­tor’s struc­tural prob­lems,” she said.

Thousands of peo­ple par­tic­i­pated in a protest march in Cordoba to pub­li­cize the plight of the olive oil sec­tor and sup­port calls for the urgent pro­vi­sion of stor­age aid. Agricultural unions orga­niz­ing the protest – the sec­ond major demon­stra­tion in recent weeks – said about 10,000 peo­ple had attended, though police put the fig­ure at about 7000.

Eduardo López, sec­re­tary of one of the orga­niz­ers, COAG-Andalucía, said Cioloş was ​“play­ing with the inter­ests of the Spanish econ­omy in gen­eral and those of the olive oil sec­tor, which com­prises more than 200,000 olive and olive oil pro­duc­ers and more than 2,000 coop­er­a­tives and mills” putting at risk, he said, the ​“more than 14 mil­lion jobs in this sec­tor.”

López queried why two years ago, pri­vate stor­age aid had been acti­vated solely on the grounds that there was a mar­ket dis­tur­bance, ​“not because prices for any oils had dropped below the trig­ger level.”

Currently in Spain, ​“there is no sur­plus, in fact imports have increased, yet there is a price drop, which indi­cates mar­ket manip­u­la­tion by an oli­gop­oly formed by four large com­pa­nies that are manip­u­lat­ing con­sumers and the indus­try,” López said, adding ” so there is suf­fi­cient rea­son” to acti­vate stor­age aid in Spain.

Agustín Rodríguez, gen­eral sec­re­tary of UPA-Andalusia, said he remained con­vinced that stor­age aid would be intro­duced and agreed that other longer-term steps were needed to curb the ​“abu­sive posi­tion” of the big dis­trib­u­tors.

Olive oil pro­duc­ers should form 5 – 10 big groups in order to bet­ter defend them­selves against the clout of the coun­try’s five main dis­trib­u­tors, who cur­rently bought from about 1700 sep­a­rate sell­ers, he said.

Private stor­age aid would enable pro­duc­ers to receive pay­ments for keep­ing olive oil in long-term stor­age con­tain­ers, with­hold­ing it from the mar­ket until pric­ing con­di­tions improve. Spanish grow­ers are suf­fer­ing from a pro­longed pric­ing cri­sis dur­ing which it has been com­mon prac­tice to sell olive oil for less than pro­duc­tion costs.

This is a break­ing news arti­cle. Check back for updates.

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