Brussels, 14/11/2006 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 13 November, the EU Council of Ministers adopted without debate the decision to establish a tariff quota of 180,000 tonnes as of 1 January 2007 for imports of sugar from Croatia to the Community. In compliance with the protocol, which amends the stabilisation and association agreement between the parties, the EU obtains reciprocal preferential access to the Croatian market for 80,000 tonnes of sugar (EUROPE 9153).
In order to reassure the Member States which, at technical level, had expressed “serious concern” about what was considered a high level of tariff quota for Croatia, the Commission stresses in a declaration included in the minutes of the Council that the protocol concluded with Croatia “will not serve as a precedent for the future sugar production quota, which will be determined in the framework of the accession negotiations with Croatia, or for the trade negotiations in this area with other countries participating in the stabilisation and association process”. “The different negotiations will be conducted on their own merits, and the aforementioned amounts will be negotiated taking into account, inter alia, the situation on the sugar market and the need to avoid disruption in the sugar sector, which is particularly sensitive for Member States”, the Commission assures.
During examination procedure of the text, some Member States also stressed the need to tackle the problem of imports of certain tariff lines (mainly blends of cocoa powder and sugar), in order to prevent certain quotas from being circumvented. The Commission has given its assurance that the problem of blended products was being closely followed and would continue to be so. Such concerns had been relayed by the International Confederation of European Beet Growers (CIBE) and the European Committee of Sugar Manufacturers (CEFS), which had explained that the recent provisions on the classification of sugar products in the customs nomenclatura have the effect of authorising Croatia to export towards the EU “as much sugar” as it wishes, if at least 0.2% of cocoa powder is added to the sugar. (EUROPE 9279).
We recall that, in 2000, in the context of the stabilisation and association process, the Community granted almost all farm products from the Western Balkans free access to its market, without restriction. In February 2005, however, given the sensitive nature of the sugar sector and the restructuring process foreseen at the time, the Council entrusted the Commission with negotiating with Croatia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia on amendments to their respective agreements with a view to bringing in tariff quotas for sugar. Such quotas have existed since early July 2005 for other countries of the Western Balkans: Serbia and Montenegro and Kosovo (180,000 tonnes), Albania (10,000 tonnes), Bosnia Herzegovina (12,000 tonnes) (see EUROPE 8885). Since January 2006, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia has benefited from an exportable volume of 7,000 tonnes of sugar. Croatia is the last country of the Western Balkans with which the EU has negotiated the setting up of the customs tariff system. (lc)