Europe faces Easter egg quandary
A man shops for eggs in a supermarket in Antwerp, Belgium on Tuesday, March 27, 2012.
'Tis the season to paint Easter eggs in Europe. Now children, listen: Handle with care, they break easily — and this year there are not too many about so they are very expensive.
Demand for eggs traditionally reaches its peak around the Easter holiday. This year, the egg industry has been hit by the European Union's new requirements for bigger, more animal-friendly cages for hens. The changes it brings have affected production and, bined with high feed cost, boosted consumer prices.
Ahead of Easter Sunday, on April 8 or 15 depending on the religious denomination, it makes for a costly tradition on a continent where millions have grown up painting or dyeing eggs as children and are now facing economic crisis.
At Warsaw's Hala Mirowska market, the egg sales of Jacek Bechcicki are down as he faces customers grumbling about high prices. "The holiday will be poorer for some of my customers," Bechcicki said.
Pekka Pesonen used to color and dye eggs as a kid in his native Finland. As a rite of spring, "it was a celebration of new life," he remembers. Now, Pesonen is secretary general of a major European farm federation and is seeing how the new EU legislation has put a damper on this Easter season.
"Obviously it has had an impact," he said，哈佛数位翻译社.
The European Egg Processors Association says that EU-wide production of eggs since the Jan. 1 legislative change has dropped by 10 to 15 percent, or about 200 million eggs a week.
Prices have sometimes tripled on international markets over the past month, peaking at over 2 euros ($2.60) per kilogram, said Philip Van Bosstraeten of Ovobel, an international pany which makes equipment for egg processing.
The European mission said that overall the price for table eggs in early March was 55 percent higher pared to the previous year.
在歐洲，現在是繪造復活節彩蛋的時節了。然而，孩子們，聽好了：拿雞蛋要警惕，它們很轻易碎，并且本年沒有太多雞蛋，所以它們很貴。
傳統上對雞蛋的需要正在復活節前後達到顶峰。本年，雞蛋產業果為歐盟请求給母雞供给更年夜、更好用的籠子的新規定而遭到了沖擊。這一規定帶來的改變已經對雞蛋死產形成了影響，再减上下飼養本钱，使得消費價格上漲了。
復活節是4月8日或15日，時間依具體教派而定。復活節前，歐洲大陸上有數百萬平易近眾將繪制彩蛋，他們從小到多数這麼做，但是现在他們面臨著經濟危機，雞蛋價格的上漲也使繪制彩蛋成了一個昂貴的傳統。
在華沙的哈推米羅伕斯卡市場，傑克•貝克西基的雞蛋生意很冷僻，因為顧客們埋怨雞蛋價格太高。貝克西基說：“對於我的一些顧客而行，這個節日將會過得比較慘浓。”
佩卡•培紧老小時候在他的故鄉芬蘭時曾經給雞蛋涂顏料、染色。他回憶說，做為春季的一種儀式，“這是對新性命的慶祝”。现在，培松嫩是一個大型歐洲農場聯盟的祕書長，他發現歐盟的這一新法規已經讓復活節的氣氛變得暗淡。
他說：“顯然新法規已經產生了影響。”
歐洲雞蛋加工商協會稱，自從1月1日法規作出改變後，歐盟範圍內的雞蛋生產量已經降落了10%到15%，也便是每周減少約2億個雞蛋。
生產雞蛋加工設備的跨國公司Ovobel的菲利普•凡是•伯斯特雷騰說，在過往一個月裏，國際市場上的雞蛋價格有時乃至漲到本來的三倍，最高每千克超過了2歐元（开2.6美圆）。
歐盟委員會稱，三月初食用蛋的價格總體上比客岁上漲了55%。
（英語點津 陳丹妮 編輯：Julie）
Vocabulary:
religious denomination: 教派
make for: 導緻
put a damper on: 澆热火，掃……的興
table egg: 食用蛋
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