Brussels, 23 July 2009 - The European Commission has approved 16 programmes in 12 Member States (Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Latvia, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom) to provide information on and to promote agricultural products in the European Union.
The total budget of the programmes running between one and three years is € 62.1 million, of which the EU will contribute € 27.8 million. The selected programmes cover organic products, dairy products, meat, wine, fruit and vegetables, olive oil, honey and flowers.
“I am pleased to say that this decision also covers promotion of dairy products” said Mariann Fischer Boel, Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development. “As we announced on Wednesday, promotion is one of the ways we aim to help our dairy producers out of the current crisis. We are now launching an accelerated procedure to increase support to the promotion of dairy products, with a budget of € 20 million.”