Policy

Trade

Eucolait supports the European Commission's vision of an open, sustainable and assertive trade policy. Built around the concept of "open strategic autonomy," this approach emphasises the need for well-functioning, diversified and sustainable global value chains. As the world's largest exporter and second-largest importer of agri-food products, Europe must remain open for business and reject protectionist tendencies.

The dairy sector has shown remarkable resilience in recent years — first during the Covid-19 pandemic, then in the face of successive geopolitical shocks and wars that drove food inflation, soaring energy and input costs, and logistical disruption. This resilience can be strengthened further through greater diversification of supply chains, sourcing and export markets. The market access gained through recent free trade agreements is particularly valuable in this respect. Once an FTA enters into force, its proper implementation matters as much as the agreement itself.

The single market is Europe's beating heart, and its smooth functioning is a prerequisite for the EU's success as a leading actor in world trade. A thriving internal market, in turn, depends on a level playing field guaranteed by sufficient harmonisation of rules and a firm rejection of protectionist measures by Member States.  

On the global stage, trade depends on transparent, predictable rules and trust in the multilateral system. The EU should take a leading role in revitalising the World Trade Organisation, making it functional and fit for today's challenges.

As more is asked of European farmers, there is a growing temptation to make imports conditional on compliance with all EU standards, not just food safety. Imposing EU standards on trading partners has its limits if open trade is to be preserved. Instead, the EU should pursue improvements to the sustainability of global food systems through bilateral trade agreements and relevant multilateral fora.

Agriculture

In the broadest terms, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) should ensure the sustainability and competitiveness of EU agriculture. In this context, sustainability naturally encompasses environmental, social and economic dimensions - planet, people and profit.

The EU should continue on the path of keeping the CAP market-oriented. Since the mid-2000s, the European dairy sector has gone through significant change and a gradual liberalisation process, culminating in the abolition of the milk quota system in 2015. The shift from market support - in the form of high intervention prices and export refunds - to (mainly decoupled) producer support has allowed the EU dairy sector to grow and become the world's leading supplier.

Matching supply with demand is a task for operators in the dairy supply chain, not public authorities. The sector's resilience through multiple recent crises has once again demonstrated that mandatory public supply management has no place in today's agricultural policy. In the same vein, there should be no interference in the contractual relations between undertakings, with the exception of addressing unfair trading practices.

The market orientation of the CAP goes hand in hand with comprehensive, reliable and timely market information, giving operators in the dairy supply chain the right signals to act on. In this respect, we are a proud member of the European Milk Market Observatory Economic Board.

Market orientation need not mean a total absence of government intervention. The CAP allows for a measured degree of intervention, notably through public intervention buying, private storage aid and other emergency tools. A certain level of price volatility is inevitable, and indeed essential to a dynamic marketplace. Extreme volatility, however, can be highly damaging and should be managed primarily through private risk-management instruments such as fixed milk price schemes, forward contracts, futures and options.

The CAP should not be viewed in isolation. Strong coherence with other key policy areas such as trade, the internal market and food policy is essential. This integrated approach is, at least in principle, reflected in the Commission's Vision for Agriculture and Food.

Food

Food policy should above all be based on solid science. This principle should guide regulation on food safety in particular, but also on consumer information. The EU food safety framework - comprising the general food law, hygiene rules and official controls - can be argued to be overly precautious, but it has certainly delivered on its primary objective: ensuring that all food in Europe is safe.

At the same time, imports from countries with comparable food law regimes should not be unfairly targeted by European legislation. EU rules should, as far as possible, be based on agreed international standards and developed in close consultation with trading partners.

Beyond access to safe food, consumers should have adequate information about the nutritional properties and other relevant features of the products they buy. While certain essential information should be required by law, in other cases it is more appropriate to regulate the conditions under which claims or statements can be made by operators on a voluntary basis, under the general provison that food labelling must never be misleading.

On origin information, we firmly believe that tailored, voluntary solutions respond more effectively to consumer demand than a one-size-fits-all mandatory origin labelling scheme. We also reject any suggested link between sustainable food consumption and mandatory country of origin labelling. Initiatives such as mandatory origin labelling risk seriously undermining the proper functioning of the EU single market, which should remain a core pillar of European food policy In the dairy sector, raw milk is collected from many farms, pooled and frequently sourced across borders, while ingredients such as milk powder, whey cream are traded and blended across origins.

On health and nutrition information, a holistic approach is needed - one that takes account of a food's overall contribution to a person's diet, rather than focusing on individual nutrients in isolation. For this reason, we oppose the introduction of nutrient profiles and simplified front-of-pack labelling schemes that fail to reflect this nuance.

Food waste remains an area where EU food policy has so far fallen short. If the overall objective is to make our food systems more sustainable, this is where efforts should be concentrated.

Sustainability

Eucolait endorses the broad objective of more sustainable food systems. To be achieved it needs to be ensured, that all relevant policy areas and measures are coherent with one another and do not result in undue barriers to trade.

The transformation towards increasingly sustainable food systems can only be achieved in combination with openness towards the rest of the world. International trade in agricultural goods contributes to better availability of food across the globe by redistributing products from surplus to deficit regions. The importance of trade for food security will increase further as the world population grows and as the effects of climate change are felt unevenly across the planet. Dairy products are an important part of a healthy, balanced diet, but not all regions are well suited to milk production — for instance due to a warm climate or lack of water.

The European dairy sector already operates very efficiently and with relatively low emissions by comparison. Learn more about ongoing progress and goals in our sustainability manifesto. Examples of the activities, ambitions and sustainability policies of our member companies are listed in the annex to the manifesto.

Dairy companies have taken significant measures to reduce their environmental footprint and made strong sustainability commitments across the board, CO2 neutrality being just one example.

Sustainability considerations run across all economic activity and are reflected in numerous policy initiatives, from the Commission's Vision for Agriculture and Food to the recently adopted Livestock Strategy. What is needed is coherent policy making that strikes the right balance between environmental ambition, economic viability and international competitiveness, without creating unnecessary barriers to intra-EU and international dairy trade.

Trade helps limit food losses by increasing the efficiency of supply chains, while most food waste occurs at the point of sale to the final consumer and in households.