EU: Barley production of the EU-25 was 61.6 million tonnes in 2004, Coceral forecasts a drop to 56.5 million tonnes in 2005, as the trendline of yields is much lower than the record yields of last year. Export licences for 2.2 million tonnes have been booked so far, total exports for the crop year are expected to reach 3.1 – 3.2 million tonnes. Barley intervention stocks (incl. offers to intervention) are above 2 million tonnes now, further 2 million tonnes of surplus barley must find a home in exports or intervention.

Barley stocks of 2 million tonnes are unpleasantly high, but it is the total grain intervention stock of 14.3 million tonnes, which is the real burden to the EU Commission and to markets as well. 6.4 million tonnes of grains are accepted by or offered to intervention in the new member countries, of which 5.8 million tonnes in the landlocked Czech, Slovakia and Hungary. Therefore the Commission has opened export sales tenders of wheat from these countries, also a barley tender from Germany. It is feared that such action will hinder or in the worst case block exports from free markets. The Commission knows, of course, that free supplies from landlocked countries cannot compete in export business. In Hungary and even in the Czech Republic there is not even enough storage space for intervention grains so that transfers to silos in Belgium and Germany must save the local authorities.

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