Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Foodstuff, Legislation, Markets and Companies

"Unfortunately, member states failed to reach an agreement, although for example Germany, Austria, Holland and Poland were in the same camp as Estonia," said Estonian Agriculture Minister Ivari Padar. "In the long-term, one-time quota breaking fee is a better option than the continuation of the quota, which has been a big wish of some member states and would considerably restrict Estonia's milk production."

The Agriculture Minister said that Estonia's dairy sector is strong and production will not be restricted. "Estonian milk production is currently strong and hopefully we can also handle a one-time quota breaking fee. Although easing the fees would have been important for the Estonian dairy sector, I believe that our producers have taken possibly exceeding the quota into account when planning production," said Padar.

The quota breaking fee for 100 kg of milk is 27.83 euros. For the period 2014/2015, Estonia's milk quota is nearly 693 million kilograms. In the 2013/2014 milk quota year, 99.41% of the adjusted milk supply quota was used up. Based on the current increase in milk production, it can be expected that the milk quota will be exceeded by up to 6%. Quotas will disappear from April 2015.