Brussels, 13/11/2012 (Agence Europe) - On 8 November, the European Commission presented to the EU management committee the 2012/13 balance sheet for sugar which “shows that the ending stocks are expected to go down from 2.0 million tonnes to 1.5 million tonnes”, the European Commission spokesman for agriculture, Dacian Ciolos, explains. The Commission also concluded that “despite the level of ending stocks of 2.0 million tonnes at the end of the 2011/12 marketing year, the difference between the EU price and world market price is growing”. Therefore it seems justified to conclude that, for a fluid market and a market that is more responsive to developments on the world market, additional sugar is needed.
In 2010/11, some 1.35 million tonnes of additional sugar was allowed onto the market. In 2011/12, it was 1.1 million tonnes. For the new marketing year 2012/13, the Commission announced before the management committee that it will propose to allow an additional supply of approximately 1.2 million tonnes, in equal parts for Community sugar out-of-quota and for imports. It gave its assurance that, when fixing the tax for out-of-quota sugar and when assessing the import tenders, the Commission will look carefully at the “difference between the EU price and the world market price which is deemed to be too high in the current market circumstances”.
The Commission will also proceed to open the second tranche of out-of-quota exports of 700,000 tonnes. In addition to the 650,000 tonnes already issued in October, this will bring the total quantities of out-of-quota exports for the marketing year 2012/13 to 1.35 million tonnes, within the WTO limit of 1.37 million tonnes.
Both measures - 1.2 million tonnes for the domestic market and 700,000 tonnes for exports - should be put to the management committee on 29 November and the formal vote will take place on 6 December. They will take effect early 2013.
While the European Commission is preparing these new management measures, the EU agricultural and cooperative organisations under the umbrella of COPA-COGECA call on the European Parliament in a press release published on 12 November to “reject any new concessions which increase access for imports of raw sugar cane on the EU market and to extend EU sugar production quotas until at least 2020”.
COPA-COGECA states it is “seriously concerned about the EU sugar refining industry's proposals which increase access for raw cane sugar imports to the EU, on top of current privileges, warning they are totally unacceptable as the transitional period for liberalising trade with ACP/LDC (Ed.: African, Caribbean, Pacific/Least Developed Countries) ends in 2015”. (LC/transl.jl)