`Europe Announces 'Flexible' Support Programs for Olive Oil Producers - Olive Oil Times
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Europe Announces 'Flexible' Support Programs for Olive Oil Producers

By Lisa Anderson
May. 26, 2020 14:23 UTC

The European Commission has announced that it will be flex­i­ble when intro­duc­ing mar­ket sup­port pro­grams to mit­i­gate the impacts of the Covid-19 pan­demic.

This pack­age and the pre­vi­ous sup­port mea­sures show that the Commission is ready and will act as the sit­u­a­tion demands it.- Daniel Rosario, European Commission spokesman

This new flex­i­bil­ity will allow the olive oil and table olive pro­duc­tion sec­tors to change their fund­ing pri­or­i­ties to best mit­i­gate the eco­nomic impacts of the novel coro­n­avirus.

The mea­sures, which were first intro­duced in early April, also included giv­ing farm­ers access to loans with low inter­est rates and favor­able pay­ment sched­ules to cover oper­a­tional costs of up to €200,000 ($219,000).

“The flex­i­bil­ity intro­duced for the olive oil pro­duc­ers con­cerns the imple­men­ta­tion of olive oil and table olives sup­port pro­grams,” European Commission spokesman Daniel Rosario told Olive Oil Times. ​“It con­sists of a sim­pli­fied pro­ce­dure to amend activ­i­ties of the sec­ond and third year of the pro­grams that can­not take place in full or in parts due to the obsta­cles aris­ing from the Covid-19 pan­demic.”

“This dero­ga­tion, which has no impact on the dead­line for the pay­ment of the E.U. financ­ing, will ease the man­age­ment of the pro­grams and allow the full use of the allo­cated finan­cial means,” he added.

Other sup­port pro­grams announced by the European Commission are meant to help the sec­tor rebal­ance the avail­abil­ity of their prod­ucts on the open mar­ket.

These lat­est strate­gies to sup­port the agri-food sec­tor were adopted ear­lier this month fol­low­ing a vote by mem­ber states.

“The Commission is con­fi­dent that the adop­tion of these mea­sures will pro­vide tan­gi­ble sup­port, send the right sig­nal to mar­kets and soon pro­vide some sta­bil­ity,” Rosario said.

“This pack­age and the pre­vi­ous sup­port mea­sures show that the Commission is ready and will act as the sit­u­a­tion demands it,” he added. ​“We will con­tinue mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion in close con­tact with stake­hold­ers, the European Parliament and mem­ber states.”



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