Brussels, 28/09/2007 (Agence Europe) - The European Union has carried out its intention to dismantle the Sugar Protocol, an inter-governmental agreement in force since 1975 guaranteeing the 18 ACP sugar producing countries preferential access to the European market. Following a proposal by the European Commission in July, the decision was adopted by the Council of the EU on 28 September, without debate, and will come into effect on 1 October 2009. The protests of the ACP countries, expressed by the ACP Trade Ministers, changed nothing. Hence their increased indignation.
The Council decision signs the death warrant of the Sugar Protocol from 1 October 2009, quantities and prices guaranteed by the EU to the ACP countries for their exports of sugar to the EU will be abolished, while a special safeguard mechanism will be introduced for the most developed ACP sugar producing countries (all the Caribbean countries apart from Haiti).
The EU bases its decision on: - the expiry, on 31 December 2007, of trade measures linking the EU and ACP countries under the Cotonou Agreement, with Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) already negotiated with six ACPO regions picking up the baton from the current preferences, on the expiry of the WTO-obtained derogation for this preferential system; - Article 36 of the Cotonou Agreement which provides for the re-assessment of the Sugar Protocol by the EU and the ACP countries under EPA negotiations; - the timeliness of dismantling the protocol early enough to meet the two year notice provided for and in order to ensure that the sugar import scheme will be included in the import regime under the EPAs.
“Denouncing the Sugar Protocol is a political decision on the part of the EU which sends an extremely worrying message in the overall context of the EPA negotiations. Despite what the European Commission has argued, there are no legal obligations under the WTO to denounce the Protocol,” said Patrich Gomes, Ambassador of Guyana to the EU and Chairman of the ACP Consultative Group on Sugar.
In a statement, the ACP countries immediately reiterated their “deep concern and outrage” at the EU decision “to terminate unilaterally” the long-standing Protocol which has played a key role in the small vulnerable economies of sugar producing ACP countries. “The EU's decision comes at a time when the 18 ACP signatories are still reeling under the shock of a 36% cut in sugar prices under the 2005 reform of the EU sugar regime and when negotiations on the new Economic Partnership Agreements between the EU and the ACP countries have yet to be completed,” the statement says. All the ACP countries have made their demands to stand together to defend the advantages brought by the Sugar Protocol in future EPAs (see details in EUROPE 9506). They say that the reform of the EU sugar regime will mean a permanent loss of around €250 million per year for countries in which, in some cases, sugar represents 20% of gross national product. Despite the assurance given in 2005 by Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson that it would be maintained, the EU has decided to bury the Protocol, without giving ACP countries any assurances of how its benefits would be transposed into future agreements. (an)