Brussels, 11/10/2002 (Agence Europe) - European commissioner Pascal Lamy is wrong when he claims that the attacks from Geneva against export refunds on sugar will especially affect the interest of developing countries, says the Australian Minister of Agriculture, Mark Vaile (see EUROPE of 8/9 October, p.15), in a press release published on Friday. "Mr. Lamy has been quoted as saying that Australia and Brazil's WTO challenges would hurt mainly poor sugar exporters, but this is not the case", he declared, assuring that "Australia has no intention of challenging preferential sugar import access, or to displace African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) or Indian sugar in the EU market". What Australia and Brazil challenge, he goes on, is "the level of subsidies on exports of EU sugar which is depressing world prices to the detriment of all sugar produces. These subsidies are damaging the interests of many developing country exporters, which are reliant on the world market price", he further replies, backed by an estimate made by the Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics, by which "if the EU paid its sugar farmers at world market prices, there would be an almost 20% rise in the world market price".