Last EU milk quotas exceeded by over two million tonnes. Declarations by individual nations show that twelve EU countries overshot their milk quota in the last year of the restrictions.
Big money
The twelve countries exceeded their national milk quotas for deliveries in the 2014/2015 quota year by a total of 2,938,000 tonnes, and must therefore pay a surplus levy totalling roughly €818 million. This amount reflects the fact that total deliveries (adjusted for butterfat content) across the EU in 2014/15 increased by 2.7 per cent – or nearly 3.9 million tonnes – relative to 2013/14. The member states involved were Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Spain, Italy, Cyprus, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Austria and Poland.
Burden
In addition, Belgium and the Netherlands overshot their direct sales quota respectively by 529t (1.6 per cent) and 1,990t (2.6 per cent) and face an additional levy of respectively €147,000 and €554,000.
To ease the financial burden for producers who have to pay a surplus levy related to the milk quota year 2014/2015, Member States have been given the possibility to collect the amount due under a three year instalment scheme at zero interest rate.
The surplus production of the Member States exceeding their national quotas accounts for 1.9 per cent of total milk quota available, both for deliveries and direct sales (1.0 per cent in the previous milk quota year). 16 Member States remained under quota, with 12 of them more than 10 per cent below their quota for deliveries.
The dairy quota regime was abolished on 1 April 2015.
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