The EU Commission seems to have been very much surprised by the vast demand for public subsidy of private storage of pork.

So the Commission stamped on the brake after no more than three weeks: With immediate effect, newly entered applications will no longer be approved.

Until last Thursday, public subsidy had been granted for almost 90,000 tons of pork, out of which more than 26,100 tons originated from Germany and 19,300 tons from Spain.

The subsidies were hardly capitalised on by French and Austrian enterprises although call for EU funds came from those countries in particular.

The ending of private storage however does not seem to have any appreciable effect on the market.

The market proves to be well balanced in Germany the current week. It is true that the meat business was described as being slack, but the weakening demand was opposed by substandard quantities on offer.

So the quotation could be maintained on the current level.

The Spanish and French quotations were reported to be slightly going up by 1 cent each per kg slaughter weight. Decreasing slaughter weights and good consumer demand are feeding hope in France and Spain for a sustainable change of atmosphere on the pig market.

No such positive trend is seen so far in the Netherlands and in Belgium, where the producers had to cope with a 2-cents’ price decrease per kg slaughter weight.

Trend for the German market: From today’s point of view, the current market situation should hardly change over the weeks to come. The quantities of pigs mature for slaughter on offer are not plentiful and can be sold without any problems. Unchanged prices are expected to be the consequence.