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EU aid for farmers

September 15, 2015

EU agriculture ministers have said German farmers are to get the biggest chunk of a special aid package. It's designed to compensate them for rapidly dwindling milk and pork prices as a result of overcapacities.

https://p.dw.com/p/1GWqC
German dairy farmer
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/I. Wagner

At their regular meeting in Luxembourg, EU agriculture ministers on Tuesday agreed Germany should get 69.2 million euros ($78.2 million) from a 500-million-euro EU aid package that had been granted to compensate farmers for a steep drop in milk and pork prices.

The EU Commission said 62.9 million euros would go to France and 36.1 million euros to the UK, with some funds also to be distributed among the remaining member countries of the bloc.

The EU executive added, however, that 80 million euros would not go to member countries directly, but would rather be used to promote sales of agricultural produce.

Protests not in vain

In Germany alone, some 80,000 dairy farmers have been grappling with drastically shrinking prices for milk and pork. Already existing overcapacities in markets had been exacerbated by Russia's ban on pork product imports, in retaliation for the West's sanctions against the Kremlin over its perceived role in the Ukraine conflict.

The EU's aid package had come about after massive protests by farmers in many places in Europe.

The EU agricultural ministers' decision on how to distribute the financial resources in question will still have to be given the green light by national governments, but their approval is widely regarded to be a mere formality.

hg/el (AFP, dpa)