Freeing the milk market in Greece

摘要

The latest international bailout loan agreement to Greece, with its provisions for the liberalisation of the milk market, directly affects the Greek dairy sector, particularly milk producers. The agreement brings into effect a long-standing demand of Greece's creditors that the country liberalise its fresh milk market, giving manufactures the right to declare when milk is fresh, compared to an earlier limit that such milk sold in Greece can be a maximum of seven days old. In this way, the government went further than guidance from the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on eliminating barriers to competition (its Competition Assessment Toolkit) regarding the definition of fresh milk. It suggests milk can be sold as 'fresh' if it is 11 days old.