Olive regions work on joint strategy to maintain EU subsidies

A new olive oil lobby group is urgently preparing a position paper to protect its members from threatended subsidy cuts by the European Commission. At its meeting in Barcelona on last Tuesday, the Forum of European Olive Regions agreed to complete the so-called white paper before the end of June in order to “defend itself in Brussels” as negotiations heat up over the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) structure and budget for 2014-2020. Among changes proposed by the EC is paying all olive farmers a flat rate per hectare rather than paying some according to production history – a change which would see France and Spain lose the most.