Brussels, 25/10/2005 (Agence Europe) - In a letter to Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel on Tuesday, eleven EU Member States set out their ideas for smooth reform of the common market organisation for sugar. Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia and Finland call for reform which “includes a certain production reduction” and a “reasonable decrease in institutional prices”. The European Commission proposal presented in July this year is considered too brutal. These countries stress the risks of dismantling production in some regions and, in parallel, of a rise in production in other regions.
The main suggestions made by these countries are the following: - fall in sugar prices must be significantly less (than the 39% proposed by the European Commission) and must be introduced more gradually over time (the Commission suggests a 39% reduction in two harvest years); - the price reduction must be offset by larger direct subsidies (the Commission suggests compensating producers at 60% of costs incurred); - the level of uncoupling aid (single payment to each farm without link with production, brought in with the 2003 CAP reform) for each of the areas to be decided by each Member State; - restructuring funds foreseen must be managed by national administrations, within a framework of common Community criteria (the primary aim of these funds being to encourage economic diversification and attenuate the socio-economic effect of changes brought in); - extra compensation must be foreseen for Member States that will register a greater fall in production, in order to help beet producers and workers affected by the cessation in production activities; - reductions in production must be applied first of all to regions where there is surplus production; - the proposal aimed at increasing the current C quota for sugar production by one million tonnes (the quota being exported without refunds) is “unacceptable”.
Furthermore, the eleven Member States that are signatory to the letter stress the need to improve the international sugar trade. They recommend accepting the request of ACP countries and the less developed countries that provide sugar in Europe to know how to manage trade through a special agreement, while ensuring compliance with the commitments subscribed to by the EU under the Everything But Arms initiative (which aims to open the European sugar market up to developing countries). Within the framework of the international negotiations on the liberalisation of trade (Doha round), these countries call for sugar to be treated in a similar way to agricultural trade in order to avoid having to “pay twice” (reform plus WTO).