Europe to cut beef mountain

Press, 16 January 1986, Page 2

Europe to cut beef mountain

NZPA-Reuter Brussels The European Commission yesterday announced new measures to reduce the 730,000-tonne beef mountain in European Community stores. They said the price at which surplus beef was sold to merchants for export outside the Community had been cut 15 to 17 per cent. However, a politically controversial scheme selling beef even more cheaply to merchants exporting at least 40,000 tonnes to the Soviet Union and East European countries has been stopped, they said. Under the new scheme, the price of the beef to exporters will be 1150 European Currency Units ($2015)

a tonne for forequarters and 2050 E.C.U. ($3595) a tonne for hindquarters. Previously, the figures were 1390 E.C.U. ($2436) and 2400 E.C.U.(54207j respectively, except for the special sales to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union at 1080 E.C.U. ($1893) and 2000 E.C.U. ($3506) for the respective cuts. The special scheme resulted in sales of 175,000 tonnes of beef from Community stores to the Soviet Union in September and of 40,000 tonnes to Eastern Europe in November. A commission spokesman said the recent fall in the United States dollar justified the new scheme, which sets no lower limit to the amount of beef exported.