BRUSSELS: Dairy farmers in six European Union countries face fines totalling about 79 million euros ($103 million) for exceeding their annual production quotas for milk, the European Commission said on Thursday.
The European Union sets national milk productions limits each year to avoid flooding the market, which are then distributed among producers in each member state.
Dairy farmers in Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Ireland, Cyprus and Luxembourg jointly exceeded their national quotas by a total of 283,000 tonnes in the 2011/2012 marketing year, the Commission said in a statement.
"Despite the overrun of the quotas in these six member states, total EU deliveries remained well below the global quota volume," it added.
The EU introduced its dairy quota system in the 1980s to tackle the problem of over-production and the resulting "milk lakes". In 2008, the bloc agreed to increase quotas by 1 percent each year before abolishing them altogether in 2015.
Producers that exceeded their quotas in the countries concerned will have to pay fines in proportion to their contribution to the overrun, which are equivalent to 27.83 euros per 100 kg.
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