Brussels, 24/06/2002 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission adopted a proposal opening negotiations with WTO partners with a view to replacing the current Community regime of imports in the cereals and rice sectors, which no longer works satisfactorily, with a more linear system possibly based on tariff rate quotas and fixed customs duties. The Commission recalls that the current regime provides for customs duties on imports of cereals in the Union to be calculated on the basis of the US Commodity Exchange quotations for raw material (considered as representative of cereal prices on the world market), and explains that this method no longer reflects lower prices practised in other parts of the world, which has brought about a rise in imports, (especially central and eastern European countries, like Ukraine: Ed.) at abnormally low levels, creating imbalances on the Union's market".
"The current regime, applicable to the import of rice and cereals into the Union does not work. The representative prices serving to calculate import customs duties only really world market prices", declared Commissioner Franz Fischler, adding: "that is why we must modify the system, in total agreement with WTO producers and Article XXVIII of GATT. That means that we will negotiate with WTO trading partners that are large cereal exports to the Union. We have no intention of making rice and cereal access to the Community market more restrictive and the GATT provisions fully guarantee the retention of duties for our WTO partners. The goal we are seeking in these negotiations is thus to improve the system so that we may more rigorously take on the obligations imposed on us by the WTO and to protect our rights."