Background Pillar 1 Market intervention
48.Articles 8 to 21 of the CMO Regulation provide for market intervention in the form of public intervention and private storage aid. There are also a number of delegated and implementing acts which sit beneath these Articles. These provisions aim to reduce supply when prices are low and increase supply when prices rise. They are, therefore, closely linked to the market disturbance provisions. These measures are used far less than in previous decades, but have been used to deal with market disturbance such as the closure of Russian markets to pigmeat in 2014 which led the European Union to provide private storage aid in 2015.(14) The only current use of these interventions in the UK is in relation to skimmed milk powder.
49.As a general description, through public intervention the Member State (or States) will purchase and store the products directly until such time as they can be disposed of. The granting of aid for private storage is a form of financial assistance paid by the Commission to private operators so that they will store produce rather than sell it on the market until such time as the price rises.