Professionals of the peach and nectarine industry from the Spanish-French-Italian contact group, who met via videoconferencing last Friday, agreed to request urgent EU-wide measures for effective crisis management in order for their respective Ministries of Agriculture to raise the issue this Monday at the Council of Ministers of Agriculture of the EU and on Wednesday at the Management Committee.
The representatives of the producers confirmed that the current campaign is characterised by really low prices in the three countries forming the contact group and determined that the current crisis management measures under the framework of the PO's operational programmes are insufficient.
Therefore, the producer representatives, especially from Italy and Spain, requested the urgent implementation of Article 219 on measures to address serious market disturbances, extracted from Regulation (EU) 1308/2013 on the Common Organisation of the agricultural markets (CMO). According to this article, the European Commission has the power to adopt delegated acts that make it possible to take necessary and immediate action to address situations that cause or prevent market disturbances.
The Italian delegation informed that the crisis also affects Greece, the EU's fourth largest stonefruit producer, and which is ready to join in on the request.