LISTEN WITH READSPEAKER
Commission requests Italy to recover surplus levies due from Italian milk
producers
Today, the European Commission has called on Italy to take action to
address shortcomings in the recovery of surplus levies due from dairy producers
who exceeded their individual quotas in years when Italy overran its national
dairy quota.
In spite of repeated and numerous requests from the Commission, the
majority of levies due between 1995 and 2009 has still not been recovered by
Italian authorities, who have manifestly not taken the appropriate measures to
effectively recover the total estimated amount of at least € 1.42 billion from
producers.
This amount needs to be reimbursed to the Italian budget, so that the
Italian taxpayers do not lose out, the Commission has underlined today.
The failure to ensure the effective recovery of these levies undermines
the efforts undertaken at European level to stabilize the market of dairy
products. In addition, it creates distortions of competition with other European
and Italian producers who respected the production quotas or paid the surplus
levies in case of overrun.
Background
A quota system was introduced in the dairy sector in 1984 to address
chronic overproduction on the dairy market and the related increase in
intervention costs.
The system was essentially based on national production quotas
allocated to Member States and divided between national dairies and/or
individual producers.
When a Member State exceeds its quota, a surplus levy has to be paid by
the dairies and/or individual producers who have exceeded their individual
quota.
Today's request takes the form of a letter of formal notice. Italy has
two months to submit its observations (if any).
After examining these, the Commission may request Italy to take action
to ensure its compliance with the quota system in a given period of time
("reasoned opinion").