EU member states hit by penalties

Dairy farmers in six EU countries have been hit with penalites of over €78m for exceeding their milk quotas for the 2011/2012 season. The European Commission says that Austria, Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, Cyprus and Luxembourg went over their quotas by 283,000 tonnes in total. Austria was the worst affected with €33.6 million in levies handed out for the 4.2% excess. Ireland paid a total of €16.6m for nearly 60,000 tonnes.