The Regional Secretary for Agriculture and the Environment highlighted the "consensus" between the Government of the Azores and the MEPs of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament (S&D) either in the analysis of the situation of the milk sector or in the need for a European solution.
 
The analysis of the Regional Government "fully coincides" with the opinion of MEPs of the S&D Group, which is the fact that "we are facing a market problem," said Luís Neto Viveiros. He received in audience, on behalf of the President of the Government, a delegation of the S&D Group that is paying an official visit to the Azores.
 
The Secretary for Agriculture spoke at the end of the audience, reiterating that Azorean producers have prepared themselves in due time. However, "a series of circumstances unpredictably coincided" with the end of the milk quotas system, including the Russian ban and the retraction in emerging markets such as China and Angola, “causing all this turmoil" in the EU.
 
In this context, the Regional Secretary and the political coordinator of the S&D Group Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, MEP Paolo de Castro, emphasised the urgency of the European Commission to implement measures to solve the problem concerning the disposal of agricultural products, which cannot continue to be supported by European producers through the drop of prices paid per litre of milk.
 
Alongside this position, Luís Neto Viveiros revealed that he called for the "solidarity" of MEPs and their "contribution" to the increase of the financial envelope of POSEI allocated to the Azores, taking into consideration the greater impact of the current situation in the archipelago.
 
The Government has "demonstrated in all appropriate forums that the Azores need additional aid" for regional milk producers, given its situation as an "outermost region with very specific characteristics," namely the distance from markets and the methods of production, said the government official.
 
The Regional Secretary also stressed that POSEI, a direct production aid programme, was "designed and budgeted in a completely different context from the current situation."