Brussels, 08/06/2004 (Agence Europe) - The Special Agriculture Committee (SAC) held a largely technical discussion on Monday about reforms to the sugar sector, pending a communication by Commissioner Franz Fischler, to be adopted on 14 July. The Irish Presidency decided on Friday not to include sugar reform on the agenda of the Council of 21 June. The Member States will thus only get their teeth into the issue at the end of July (possibly at the SAC of 19 July and at the Agriculture/Fisheries Council to follow).
At the SAC, the Spanish and Portuguese delegations said that no decision on the future of the regime should be taken before the WTO panel set up by request of Brazil, Thailand and Australia returns its verdict, and the results of talks on trade liberalisation (Doha round) and on the bilateral agreement with the Mercosur countries are available. Denmark repeated its position in favour of a liberalisation of the regime. Sweden, Germany and Slovakia stated their preference for the option to reduce sugar prices (to be retained by the Commission in July: Ed).
Examining the report by the "sugar and isoglucose" group (see EUROPE of 4 June, p.9), the SAC returned to two important subjects: Production quotas: Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Austria, Finland, Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary called for sugar production quotas to be kept at sufficiently high levels; Price reductions: Spain, Finland, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia and Latvia felt that compensation should be paid to producers if prices are reduced. Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Slovenia and Cyprus insisted that this price reduction should be phased in.