Brussels, 13/11/2012 (Agence Europe) - In a press release published on Monday 12 November, COPA-COGECA calls on MEPs to take a stance in favour of keeping sugar production quotas in place until at least 2020, claiming that industry needs a stable EU sugar regime in order to improve its competitiveness.
Pekka Pesonen, COPA-COGECA Secretary General, said: “It is vital to maintain the EU sugar production quotas until at least 2020 to ensure we have a viable EU sugar sector in the years to come. A mechanism also needs to be introduced to automatically put out-of-quota sugar on the market when it needs it to maintain market balance”.
Pesonon pointed out that the sector has already been restructured on an unprecedented scale, causing 140,000 beet growers to abandon production with the loss of 10,000 jobs in rural areas where there is often no alternative source of employment. The least advanced countries and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries say, moreover, that it would be totally “unjustified to increase instability and volatility with the unnecessary removal of tools to manage market supply as from 2015”, COPA-COGECA states. (LC/transl.jl)