Berlin, July 2 - The agriculture ministers of Germany and France wrote to the European Commission on Thursday to ask for regulatory help for their dairy farmers because of weak milk prices.
"New forms of regulation are necessary at the European level so that the dairy sector does not solely depend on the rules of the market," Isle Aigner of Germany and France's Bruno Le Maire wrote to EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel.
Brussels, which oversees farm policy in the 27-nation European Union, has already taken a string of measures to shore up dairy markets such as reinstating export subsidies, angering some of its trading partners.
But dairy prices have failed to rise.
"Prices for milk producers remain weak and we are seeing no change in the trend," the ministers wrote in their letter to Fischer Boel, a copy of which Reuters obtained.
They urged the Commission to consider suspending an increase in dairy quotas planned for 2010. They said it would also be useful to revalue export subsidies for cheese.
In May, figures released by France's statistics office Insee showed milk prices were 29 percent lower on the year-ago period.
Separately, France and Germany set up a working group to prepare for the next reform of the EU's Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) in 2013. The group will meet from September.
France fears opponents to the CAP, headed by Britain, will take the opportunity to dismantle a policy that eats up more than 40 percent of the EU budget.