Paris, Oct 6 - France plans to organise next week another meeting of European farm ministers on the dairy sector after insufficient progress at a gathering in Brussels earlier this week, French Agriculture Minister Bruno Le Maire said.
France wants to bring together the farm ministers of the 20 European Union countries that have backed a French-German call for new dairy regulations in advance of a formal EU farm council on Oct. 19, Le Maire told the lower house of the French Parliament on Tuesday.
The minister said he was not satisfied with the outcome of a special meeting of all 27 EU members in Brussels a day earlier, although he welcomed a consensus in favour of new regulations.
"I am asking the Swedish EU presidency to move faster and more vigorously," he said.
France was specifically calling for the EU to modify immediately its common market rules to allow agreements between dairy producers and manufacturers, he said.
It was also requesting that the European Commission present at the upcoming farm council a guideline letter to the 2010 budget acknowledging the difficulties of dairy farmers, he said.
At Monday's meeting in Brussels, called at France's request, farm ministers gave their backing to an expert group set up by the European Commission and due to report next year on long-term measures to support the struggling dairy sector.
But short-term decisions were left to the Oct. 19 council, leading farm unions to criticise the discussions as too vague.
Farmers have been protesting against a slide in European dairy prices over the past year, culminating in a delivery boycott in several countries last month that saw millions of litres of milk dumped or handed out to the public.
To support producers against market volatility, France has been pushing for measures such as all-year-round EU intervention buying, a European dairy futures market, and supply agreements between producers and manufacturers.