Of course surplus countries can run structural surpluses over long periods.

I do not actually believe in the virtues of private storage for managing production with a structural surplus.

The current account has also settled into a structural surplus, providing a cushion to capital flight.

The structural surpluses in the EU still amount to about 15 million hectolitres.

That is the primary structural surplus that Greece needs, and debt restructuring would not solve this very fundamental fact.

Europe does not in fact have a structural surplus of wine, but instead has a surplus corresponding exactly to the quantities planted illegally.

Support for the necessary conversion to new varieties is therefore urgently needed, both to reduce the area under hops and to eliminate structural surpluses.

Likewise, a structural surplus is when the economy is fundamentally operating at a surplus regardless of its point in the business cycle.

Five years have gone by and the much-feared structural surpluses have not materialised. The Commission's draconian proposals therefore no longer make sense.

The current structural deficit is forecast to fall from 4.6% of GDP this year to a current structural surplus of 0.5% in five years time.

With this in mind, the group is in favour of the Commission maintaining the ban on subsidies designed to increase production capacity in areas with a structural surplus.

This is unacceptable because the Commission's proposal to eliminate at least part of the structural surplus is essential in order to fulfil our obligations under the WTO.

In fact, all the indications are that we are going to continue with the old system of producer price reductions and exporting structural surpluses, rather than moving over to integrated rural development.

Let us recall that in the final analysis, fiscal solvency requires stabilising and then reducing the government debt ratio - i.e. achieving a primary structural surplus and achieving a debt-stabilising level.

The Commission agrees that one of the main challenges is to revive demand, but profitability is even more vital and the pattern of structural surplus leading to lower prices and negative incomes needs to be stopped first.

I regret that because, in view of trends in the production and consumption of wine products in the European Union, there is clearly a structural surplus for the 1996/97 wine year of around 15 million hectolitres.

At the same time, the hop market is currently beset by global structural surpluses. It is estimated that world alpha acid production in 1996 was about 9000 tonnes, compared with the brewing industry's annual requirements of some 8000 tonnes.

Achieving and maintaining a structural surplus is important, as it provides the foundation for the debt-to-GDP ratio gradually to decline down towards more sustainable levels, from the very moment when GDP growth will return to the country.

Complementary measures in this regard might include permanent grubbing-up measures for regions with structural surpluses and a revised regulation for replanting rights, which might extend beyond the 13 wine years after the year in which grubbing-up took place.

The tough words came as the IMF's chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn said it was time for Berlin to rethink its single-minded pursuit of exports, warning that both Germany and China need to play their part in rebalancing the global system rather than relying on huge structural surpluses.

The second reason is that, as there is a structural surplus in the market for milk products, this measure also represents an incentive to dispose of milk in a far more useful and constructive way than by distributing it, denaturing it or exporting it to third countries at even greater cost.

Fortunately the pain of this fiscal consolidation, which as a negative side-effect on the short term caused a worsened recession, has now also paid off for Greece, as the forecasts for 2013 now reveal the country is set to achieve a structural surplus, which will be the first time since 1973.

Responsibility for these structural surpluses lies primarily with the intervention mechanism, and so we should do away with the problem for good, rather than - as the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development is proposing - fixing our sights on a partial solution in the form of the introduction of national indicative maximum quantities.

On the issue of spending, the Council fully agrees with the Court on the need to improve the management and monitoring of the common organization of the market in the fruit and vegetable sector and also confirms the importance of reducing structural surpluses and making better use of products withdrawn from the market.