Three of the EU’s largest egg-producing states have conceded that they will fail to meet the deadline for a ban on conventional laying cages.
The National Farmers’ Union says that representatives of the three countries – France, Spain and Italy – made their revelations during a meeting of poultry industry experts from across the EU. The meeting took place in Brussels and was intended to provide poultry production estimates to the European Commission for this year and next.
In a report on the meeting prepared by the NFU, the union says the French representative estimated that between 20 and 25 per cent of his country’s production - upwards of eight million laying birds - would be non-compliant when the ban came into force in January 2012.
The Spanish representative said it would take his country four years to become compliant. The NFU says the Italians offered no figures but said that producers would miss the date. The three countries account for 39 per cent of EU production.
The NFU report says, "It is clear that the southern European countries are having problems complying and perhaps this is not surprising. Climate issues mean that growers cannot convert to free range systems because of heat waves and must invest in colony cage systems. However, French growers have no such issues."
The report says, "Surprisingly, the French expert highlighted bank lending as the problem. France was the only country in the EU not to go into recession throughout the credit crunch, so claims that banks are not lending to French growers appear to hold little water."
Anger is growing at the apparent failure of the EU Commission to deal with the now looming crisis over the EU ban on the use of conventional cages.
Two British Euro MPs have voiced their anger at the Commission following the latest meeting of the European Parliament’s Agriculture Committee at which politicians were told that 83 million eggs each day would be effectively illegal by the time the cage ban came into force in January 2012. Both the NFU and NFU Scotland have joined egg industry representatives in calling for measures to prevent illegal eggs entering the UK. And as the Ranger went to press representatives of the British Egg Industry Council were staging a lobby at Westminster to brief MPs on the threat posed to the UK egg industry by the crisis in Brussels.
They are concerned that if some EU member states are allowed more time to comply with the conventional cage ban, eggs from conventional cages in those countries could compete unfairly with eggs from UK producers who have invested to meet the requirements of the EU directive.
The latest Euro MP to raise concerns about what may happen is SNP representative for Scotland Alyn Smith. He accused the Commission of "remarkable intransigence" after attending the Agriculture Committee meeting.
He said, "Again this was a bizarre meeting, with the Commission representative - I’m sure a personable enough individual - remarkably unruffled by the fact that a third of egg production across the EU will effectively be illegal in 14 months time.
"We, as legislators, are then faced with an unappealing prospect: either to junk millions of tonnes of food, which would be unconscionable, or to, in effect, bend the rules for tardy producers. The idea of destroying food appals me, but to avoid moral hazard I think it is logical and sensible to bring in a new system to clearly identify such product, and to stop such product leaving the country of production."
He said, "This is hardly ideal, but would put a bit of impetus into those countries that have not been able to invest, while respecting the law itself, and not undermining those who have invested to meet the higher animal welfare standards the Commission, the Parliament, and most of all our consumers, all want to see.
"The Commission is not working on this urgently enough and while, of course, it is complicated and, of course, a number of states are putting in some heavy lobbying for a consequence-free extension, if we are to be taken seriously then we cannot allow this to happen."
He said that Scottish and UK producers had made the investment and were well on track to meet the deadline but, should an extension be granted for other producers, they could be undermined by cheaper imports from other EU countries, raising fears of a repetition of the situation the pig sector has faced.
Poland has already formally asked for the deadline to be put back by five years until January 2017. That request was rejected by the EU but, as we reported last month, EU inspectors have now told the Commission that there has been insufficient planning in Poland to ensure that the deadline for the cage ban is met.
At the recent meeting of industry experts in Brussels, Portugal also voiced its concerns about whether it would be able to meet the 2012 deadline.
BEIC chief executive Mark Williams has been warning for some time that a number of EU states would not be ready for the cage ban. He estimates that 29 per cent of EU production will not be compliant by the time the ban comes into force. If some states are allowed more time to comply with the rules, the UK industry wants the creation of a code to distinguish conventional cage eggs from those produced in enriched systems.
It also wants an intra-EU trade ban enforced to ensure that eggs produced in conventional cage systems cannot compete with eggs produced in compliant systems.
The industry appears to have the backing of the Government. Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman has told BFREPA that if there is a delay to the ban, the aim is to prohibit non-compliant eggs from entering the UK from another member state. The BEIC lobby in Westminster is intended to gain support more widely amongst MPs and brief them on the current position.
Another Euro MP, Stuart Agnew, the East Anglian UKIP representative who is also a free range egg producer, has already accused the Commission of burying its head in the sand over the issue. He again raised his concerns during the latest Agriculture Committee meeting.
He said virtually none of the eggs that would be illegal come January 2012 would come from the UK, but all of the illegal eggs may attempt to penetrate the UK market unless the Commission recognised that there was a problem and did something about it. He took the opportunity to press Agriculture Commissioner, Dacian Ciolos, at the Agriculture Committee meeting.
"The Commissioner surprised many of us by replying that it was nothing to do with him and would be the responsibility of the Health & Consumer Policy Commissioner, John Dalli. This means that all the letters written to him by UK producers would appear to be a waste of time.
However, this is not quite the case as any change in marketing regulations (which we desperately need) will be within his own portfolio," said Stuart Agnew after the meeting. "It suits the Commission to pass the buck around like this when the going gets tough."
He said, "I strongly advise egg producers to keep up the pressure by writing to Commissioner Dalli, if they have not already done so. Further discussions on the subject will also be taking place in the Parliament’s Environment Committee and I am now making arrangements to be a voting member of the that Committee when the subject is raised there. It is essential that someone with first-hand knowledge of the industry is present, in what is a very large Committee, because this particular issue will be of relatively minor importance to them."
Stuart Agnew said there was support for his view at the meeting from other Euro MPs from the United Kingdom, Ireland and Holland. "I urged the Commission to wake up to the fact that there really is a problem and that the Commission itself is responsible for creating it in the first place. I also insisted that as well as a proper labelling regime and a ban on the intra-community trade of battery cage eggs, there should be no question of subsidising the non-compliant producers after the ban comes into force.
"The UK is a net contributor to the EU and our taxpayers should not be picking up the bill for creating a situation where subsidised, poorer quality eggs produced to lower welfare standards in Spain are undermining our unsubsidised market here. The response from the Commission was weak. They said that several member states were not providing the required information on speed of compliance and so the Commission does not know what is going on."
He said that infraction proceedings had been initiated against three member states to force them to provide the data, but this could take years to have any effect. "There appears to be a complete paralysis on the issue and I, along with friendly MEPs from other parties, will try to force a debate on this in a future full Plenary session, in front of Commissioner Dalli. The question is, will he turn up?"
The issue of the cage ban has been raised in Brussels by NFU Scotland. It was raised during a meeting between NFUS vice president Nigel Miller and Andrea Gavinelli, the head of Animal Welfare in the Health and Consumers Directorate General of the Commission. Nigel Miller said after the meeting it was apparent that several member states would not be in a position to meet the directive’s introduction in January 2012.
He said there was a need for the Commission to ensure that any illegally produced eggs within the EU did not undermine egg production in those countries where producers had invested heavily in buildings and equipment to comply.
"Scottish farmers continue to upgrade layer accommodation at huge expense," he said. "While there are indications that certain member states will not be fully compliant in time, Mr Gavinelli gave reassurances that the EU was rigid on its planned introduction of the directive on 1st January 2012 and that there was not consideration being given to shifting the date.
"As well as urging the Commission to have monitoring in place to deal with the potential problem of illegally produced stocks of eggs circulating internally within the EU, we repeated the need for measures to be put in place to ensure that any eggs imported into the EU also meet the higher welfare standards being demanded of all European egg producers," he said.
The National Farmers Union has produced a briefing paper on the issue, in which it supports the measures the UK egg industry has been calling for. In the conclusion to the briefing paper, it says, "The UK egg industry is completely unsupported and market driven and showcases some of the highest welfare, food safety, traceability and environmental standards in the world.
It is ludicrous that UK egg producers could be put at a commercial disadvantage by complying with European legislation. It is essential that eggs produced in conventional cages can be identified and therefore forced to remain within the member state of production to protect our producers from being subjected to competition from cheaper illegal imports."
