IP/04/78
Brussels,21 January 2004
Commission authorises aid for agricultural marketing organisation CMA (Germany)
The European Commission has today authorised Germany to pay aid worth a total of €100 million per year to the CMA (Central Marketing Organisation of the German Agricultural Industries). The CMA is a state-controlled enterprise in charge of sales promotion and marketing of German agricultural products. The authorised aid scheme provides also for aid to the Central Market and Price Reporting Bureau (ZMP). The latter receives €9 million per year for their market research and market monitoring activities. The duration of the aid scheme is five years.
The activities of the CMA and ZMP mainly benefit agricultural and food industry undertakings which take advantage of collective advertising, shared marketing, market reporting and market research activities and can take part in training measures, competitions, trade fairs and exhibitions.
The authorised aid scheme provides for the following individual measures:
-Advertising and sales promotion measures;
-Participation in trade fairs and exhibitions, training measures and advisory services;
-Promotion of technical support related to the development and production of quality products;
-Market research activities;
Advertising focuses in particular on two labels, the “CMA-Gütezeichen” (CMA quality label) and the “QS-Zeichen” (Quality and Safety label)[1]. Consumers will be informed about the related criteria and services linked to these labels. The advertising media used include classic advertising such as press adverts and poster campaigns, cinema and TV commercials, radio reports, brochures etc. The labels awarded make no reference to the producer country. Access to the quality labels is open for all enterprises in the European Union, if they comply with the quality programme requirements. The label users must meet the conditions in the field of production, processing and marketing and will face clearly higher control standards than normal.
The aid measure is funded from parafiscal charges. German agricultural and food industry undertakings pay compulsory levies to finance the aid scheme. These levies are collected by law and administered by the Promotion Fund. The Promotion Fund is a public law body located in Bonn. The measure is implemented on the basis of the Promotion Fund Law – Act establishing a central fund for the promotion of German agriculture and forestry (Absatzfondsgesetz – Gesetz über die Errichtung eines zentralen Fonds zur Absatzförderung der deutschen Land- und Forstwirtschaft).
The text of the decision will be made available on the Internet at
once Member States have indicated whether they want parts of the decision deleted for reasons of confidentiality. The decision can be found under the aid number N 571/02.
CMA-quality label Quality and safety-label
[1]For layout samples see below