Brussels, 12/04/2007 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 12 April, the parliamentary agriculture committee took a stance in favour of renewing the current potato starch quotas allocated to member states for another four years, until 2010/2011. The European Commission suggested extending the scheme until 2008/09, i.e. for only two years (EUROPE 9337). The report on this by Janusz Wojciechowski (UEN, Poland) is due to be adopted by the European Parliament on 23 April, in Strasbourg.
The EP committee on agriculture recommends renewing the current system for another four marketing years, in order to allow producers to better anticipate market developments. Members of the committee consider that the end of 2011 will be a more appropriate time for reviewing the situation of the sector rather than the time of the check-up of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) foreseen for 2008. They stress it is necessary to wait and see what effect the recent sugar reform has on the isoglucose sector, a starch-based fructose sweetener that competes with potato starch, as does cereal starch, in industrial applications.
Furthermore, the agriculture committee rejected, by a slim majority, amendments submitted by the rapporteur aimed at raising quotas of the two main producers from the new member states: from 144,985 to 180,000 tonnes annually for Poland and from 1,211 to 4,855 tonnes annually for Lithuania. (lc)