Plan to nibble away E.E.C. beef mountain

Press, 27 December 1985, Page 14

Plan to nibble away E.E.C. beef mountain

By

LIZ BARDER

in Brussels

The E.E.C. beef mountain — all 300,000 tonnes of it — might be eaten away if the experts in the E.E.C. Commission succeed with their plan to abolish the E.E.C.’s complicated market support system.

The scheme would bring down the price of beef which is presently kept artificially high by the Common Market ‘’intervention” system. Without being able to dispose of surplus beef at the guaranteed intervention price, the farmer would produce less, prices would fall accordingly and, the bureaucrats hope, people would eat more beef.

At the moment, very high quality lean meat is bought in and stored by the E.E.C. intervention boards. After six months, the quality deteriorates so much that the beef is only fit for processing. The experts want to see storage phased out over a three-year period, with

an initial abolition of intervention storage for whole carcasses of beef next autumn. 1

If, because of public opinion and shortage of money, the palmy days of E.E.C. food mountains and milk and wine lakes are passed, certain member countries seem unaware of the fact. The [Man is causing fierce controversy within the 14man Commission, the E.E.C.’s civil service, in Brussels. The Commission president, Mr Jacques Delors, one-time French Finance Minister, is under pressure from Paris to resist radical changes in the Common Agricultural Policy (C.A.P.). He is supported by Commissioners from Ireland, Belgium, and Italy. The scheme is arousing such strong feelings because, in many E.E.C. countries and particularly France, small-scale farmers depend on the E.E.C. intervention system for their livelihood. With

French parliamentary elections in March, President Mitterrand wants to avoid all too familiar scenes of rioting farmers. The political aspect of moving the mountain is clashing with the commonsease approach of E.E.C. Commissioner for Agriculture, Mr Frans Andriessen, and his staff who condemn the system of supporting beef as outrageously inefficient and expensive. The E.E.C. intervention for beef costs £ 1.4 billion ($3 billion) a year. This latest attack on the beef mountain follows the Commission proposal to impose a Europe-wide ban on the use of hormones as growth promoters in livestock. It is a part of a package of C.A.P. reform measures including moves to drastically reduce the E.E.C. cereal mountain by introducing a cash penalty for over-production. Copyright — London Observer Service.