Brussels, 25/05/2005 (Agence Europe) - The legislative proposal for amending the Common Market Organisation (CMO) of the sugar markets, which the European Commission is expected to adopt on 22 June, is causing concern among members of the parliamentary agriculture committee, admitted Joseph Daul (EPP-ED, France), the president of this committee, during the course of a seminar organised on Tuesday in Brussels by the Italian agricultural organisation Coldiretti (EUROPE 8951 and 8953 on the Commission draft). Mr Daul explained that “as we see that it is going in the wrong direction, we cannot give our opinion before the end of the year. This is not blackmail but with this dossier, we can have an influence on a balanced proposal. This is the objective we'll be pursuing”. The Commission is hoping to get an agreement from the Council on sugar reform by November (before the WTO ministerial meeting in Hong Kong: EUROPE 8943). The EP agriculture committee will be organising a hearing on 13 July for a debate with European farming organisations on the Commission's sugar sector reforms (including the international aspects of the dossier and the WTO negotiation and preferential agreements with ACP countries. Mr Daul called on agricultural organisations to “work quickly” on this case and envisaged the drafting of the report by September then its adoption in October's plenary.
The two major agricultural themes awaiting the EP next year are fruit and vegetables (following the own initiative report adopted in May by the EP: EUROPE 8946) and wine. The EU has registered a structural surplus in wine production and according to Mr Daul, there are two possible solutions: reduce the distilled production or convince the Chinese to drink a glass of wine a week.