Brussels, 03/05/2000 (Agence Europe) - We group below certain points for which space could not be found in our earlier bulletins:
1. Citrus fruits. Italy requested that, in the citrus fruit sector, the production threshold mechanism should not be based on overall Community production but on the national production of producer countries. With the current system, when the Community threshold is exceeded, all producers are penalised. In other words, the producers of a country which stabilises or reduces its production are penalised if the producers of another Member State increase their production. The fixing of national thresholds would eliminate this anomaly.
2. Cotton. Spain and Greece recently proposed an alternative draft reform for the cotton sector, in the context of Council negotiations on the European Commission project. These two countries consider that the rise in penalties for exceeding the "maximum guaranteed quantities" must be accompanied by a rise in these quantities. The current ceiling is 1,031,000 tonnes per year. It is likely to be increased to 1,600;000 tonnes, of which about 1,200,000 goes to Greece and 350,000 tonnes for Spain. The Commission rejects this project which, it believes, would involve a significant rise in spending, and it maintains its proposal (that other Member States would like to strengthen further).
3. Rice. The Commission is expected to adopt, on 17 May, the proposal of revision of the common market organisation for rice. The essential element would be represented by abolition of the intervention (in order to avoid excessive rice stocks from accumulating in European shops), offset by an increase in aid of around 20% and strengthened protection of imports from third countries, while respecting the limits agreed by the Union's international commitments.