Brussels, 25/11/2011 (Agence Europe) - The EU Management Committee, on Thursday 24 November, approved three sugar market management measures proposed by the European Commission. “As our primary aim is to ensure that the EU market is well supplied, these proposals are designed as the most efficient measures to secure additional quantities for the domestic market - by both facilitating imports and taking advantage of the absence of the out-of-quota harvest within the EU”, said a Commission spokesman.
Out-of-quota exports will be increase by 700,000 tonnes (t), in addition to the 650,000t for which provision has already been made, thereby reaching the limit of 135,000t set by the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The new licences will be available from 1 December.
Operators will be allowed to release up to 400,000t of out-of-quota sugar onto the internal market against the payment of a levy of €85 per tonne (compared with the usual levy of €500/t). The maximum bid will be 50,000t per operator per application period.
Tenders will be opened for setting a minimal duty for exceptional imports into the EU. In the case of raw sugar for refining, these will be open only to full-time refiners in December, then, in the course of 2012, further tenders will be scheduled during which all operators will be able to apply for raw sugar for refining.
The Management Committee delivered favourable opinions on the first two measures, but could not find a majority in favour of the third which will, therefore, be adopted by the Commission on its own authority.
The Management Committee also voted through a regulation which aims to improve market transparency. Information from the price monitoring system will be made available the following month, three months earlier than under the current rules.
“On top of the cyclical market aspects, the sugar market situation observed in the EU today again shows the limits of the quota mechanism and its structural shortcomings”, commented Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Ciolos. This was why he proposed to end the sugar quota regime in 2015. “Quotas are now preventing producers from fully benefiting, thanks to their efforts, from the competitiveness achieved in recent years both on the EU market and on world markets. This does not mean that we will end all forms of market management”, he said. In parallel with the ending of the quota regime, he has proposed a framework of modernised market management instruments with true safety nets, a clearer, strengthened role for producer organisations and obligatory contracts, before sowing, between growers and processors. (LC/transl.rt)