Brussels, 13/12/2002 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday, EU Agriculture Ministers are expected to adopt proposals aiming to set quotas for medium-quality wheat and barley imports, although not all the problems of the volume of cereals from the Black Sea have been settled (see EUROPE 12 December p 12). Member States believe that this new system, especially that with the USA and Canada will allow at least for an agreement with Russia on a decent sized quota to be concluded (in the range of 4-5 million tons) for deliveries to the EU.
During the last Special Agriculture Council (9 December), several Member States, such as Ireland, Germany and even Denmark expressed worries about possible retaliation measures that Russia could impose on beef meat deliveries if it did not obtain the quota size it was seeking. Denmark stressed that it had never asked for the import system to be modified and added that this could trigger off a "trade war" with Moscow. The Netherlands indicated that they wanted the agreement with the USA and Canada because the import system was not functioning that well before. The Council could adopt two draft decisions on quotas (one with the USA and the other on the compromise with Canada) but the draft regulation (on the modification of customs duties) will have to go through the European Parliament first.