Pursuant to Article 9 of Regulation (EC) No 1255/1999 private storage aid may be granted for long-keeping cheeses and for cheeses which are manufactured from sheeps’ and/or goats’ milk and require at least six months for maturing, if for those cheeses price developments and the stock situation indicate a serious imbalance of the market which may be eliminated or reduced by seasonal storage.

At the same time, handicrafts which only make cheese from ewe's and goat's milk would close, with the result that unemployed cheese-makers would join the unemployed farmers, reducing the production of unique Greek cheeses based on ewe's and goat's milk such as feta.

Therefore, as regards the issue of the feta cheese made by my Greek friends, you are not acknowledged as having competence with regard to feta cheese, which is produced in Lozère using goats’ milk from the south of France.

1. Private storage aid may be granted for longkeeping cheeses and for cheeses which are manufactured from sheep and/or goat's milk and require at least six months for maturing, if for those cheeses price developments and the stock situation indicate a serious imbalance of the market which may be eliminated or reduced by seasonal storage.

It may also provide for measures to support milk production in the sheep and goat sector, to structure that sector, alleviate difficulties in the processing and marketing of local farm cheeses made from ewe's and goat's milk, rectify the fragmentation of supply, improve the quality of milk and assist diversification.

On 22 December 1988, the Commission decided that Greek legislation which allowed the name "feta" only for cheeses made from sheep milk and goat milk did not infringe Article 30 of the EEC Treaty as interpreted by the Court of Justice in the Déserbais case. According to that judgment, an imported foodstuff could be prohibited from bearing the designation used in the Member State of origin where it "is so different, as regards its composition or production, from the products generally known by that name in the Community that it cannot be regarded as falling within the same category" (Case 286/86, [1988] ECR 4921.) In 1990 the Commission re ...[+++]ceived several complaints from traders in this connection, as a result of which it has conducted a long and exhaustive inquiry into the implementation of the Greek legislation regarding the type of milk used, to make sure there was no hidden discrimination against traders in other Member States.