The European Commission awarded wheat subsidies at a maximum of 8.94 euros ($12.01) a tonne on Thursday, granting licences for 74,000 tonnes, short of exporters' hopes. The relatively low subsidy award comes after several weeks of steady increases in the refunds since they were revived last month. The EU began with a low four euros, then raised it in two euro stages, granting a 10-euro subsidy last week.
Exporters, who bid to export a total of 798,500 tonnes at refunds ranging from 8.43 to 15 euros, had said they needed a significant raise in the refund level.
Analysts said the Commission's export policy direction was no clearer after the decision.
"They have completely stalled the market. No-one knows what to do," James Dunsterville of AgriNews in Geneva said. Euronext milling wheat futures closed lower at 1730 GMT, ahead of the official release time of the results.
French grains office ONIC has said the Commission should be granting subsidies high enough to allow at least 400,000 tonnes of wheat a week be exported, or the bloc's silos would face an avalanche of sales into intervention.
French analyst Strategie Grains earlier on Thursday cut its forecast of EU-25 wheat exports down by 100,000 tonnes to 10.8 million tonnes, having lowered its forecast for German shipments, although this was offset by larger sales from central Europe, where stocks have been rising fast.
The latest EU data showed intervention offers continuing to rise, with now 5.83 million tonnes of wheat in store, out of a total of 10.85 million tonnes of grain.
As a result the EU has agreed to open tenders to export wheat from intervention storages in landlocked countries that will start at the end of March.