Brussels, 13/02/2014 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has announced its intention of taking measures to supply the EU sugar market during the 2013-2014 growing year. The agricultural organisations have opposed this.
On Wednesday 12 February, COPA-COGECA called on the member states to reject the market measures for the sugar sector proposed by the Commission (see EUROPE 11013), on the grounds that they “would upset the EU sugar market balance and call into question the new CAP reform”. These measures are set to be voted on at the next EU Management Committee meeting, to be held on 27 February.
The Commission has proposed: - to open invitations to tender to allow additional imports of sugar; - to release so-called quota-free sugar onto the market.
Pekka Pesonen, the secretary general of COPA-COGECA, explained that the average European sugar price has fallen consistently since January 2013, with a drop of 100 euros/tonne, whilst final stocks of sugar subject to EU quotas are expected to reach “their highest level since 2007-2008”. He went on to argue that the market is oversupplied and that the global market price for white sugar does not even cover the production costs of the most competitive producers. “It is therefore totally unacceptable for the Commission to introduce more measures to flood the market with sugar. This would seriously disturb the market balance, put more pressure on the sector, threatening employment in EU rural areas”, Pesonen explained. Any drop in market prices resulting from this measure would benefit only the sugar users industry, since the decrease is never passed on to consumers, he stressed.
In the framework of the new CAP, the member states decided to keep European sugar production quotas in place until 2016-2017, in order to give the EU sugar market a certain amount of stability. “The latest plans call into question those decisions. I consequently urge member states to reject them when they meet this month”, concluded Pesonen.
Beet producers also speaking up. “The arguments put forward by your services to the Management Committee on 30 January are incomprehensible to beet producers”, says the International Confederation of European Beet Growers (known by its French acronym, CIBE), in a letter to the Director General of DG Agriculture at the Commission, Jerzy Plewa, dated 5 February. This DG, the Confederation states, “is stepping outside its role, which is to manage the market reasonably, by trying to interfere directly in its functioning for the sole benefit of the margins of the sugar-using businesses”. CIBE calls on the services of the Commission to “abandon” any additional EU supply measures this year. (LC/transl.fl)