Brussels authorizes aid for French lavender producers

After a golden decade, lavender growers are undergoing a violent crisis since the Covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine. So much so that their production costs are now twice as high as market prices, in particular due to higher energy costs for collection and distillation. Result: France is experiencing massive overproduction of lavender and lavandin cultivation. In an attempt to rebalance the market, Parliament voted last year a 10 million euro support plan for the sector, in the form of either grubbing-up subsidies or aid for maintaining crops. The European Commission on Tuesday approved the French aid scheme (for 9 million euros) under the "temporary crisis and transition framework for state aid" in order to "encourage measures support in essential sectors to accelerate the ecological transition and reduce dependence on fuels”. This is to directly support lavender growers “strongly impacted by the economic context resulting from Russia’s military ...