Brussels, 13/09/2006 (Agence Europe) - In a press release issued on 13 September, the International Union of Tobacco Producers (UNITAB) says that the recent Court of Justice ruling annulling the decisions on the reform of the cotton sector changes the outlook for the tobacco sector (see EUROPE 9260). There are many similarities between the two sectors (labour intensive, associated manufacturing industry, located in seriously depressed rural areas) says UNITAB. The organisation, which has been consistent in its opposition to the measures adopted at the end of April 2004 on the reform of the tobacco sector (see EUROPE 8691), denounces particularly the measures envisaged from 2010: 50% of current subsidies to be replaced by single payment, and 50% transferred to a restructuring fund. “In this sense”, the objections raised against the reform of the cotton sector (infringement of the proportionality principle, insufficient impact studies on production and labour costs, loss of producers' and forts processing companies' revenue) “apply even more for tobacco,” says UNITAB. Its press release adds that figures for the 2006 harvest (the first year of the implementation of the first stage of the reform) fundamentally challenge the balance of production, with a harvest evaluated at 250,000 tonnes, compared with 370,000 in 2005. UNITAB, along with other organisations in the sector, is studying all legal means to have a regulation, which, it feels, contravenes the fundamental principles of the EU and its Treaties, amended as quickly as possible. The organisation represents tobacco planters' associations in all EU producer countries (Germany, Belgium, Spain, France, Italy, Hungary, Greece, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia) and Switzerland.