Cut flowers controversy delays pact

Date: 02/11/1995

EU foreign ministers will meet in Brussels next week in the hope of wrapping up an association agreement with Morocco after a dispute over access for agricultural products blocked a final deal.

To widespread amazement, negotiations broke down this week over the seemingly trivial question of access to the Union market for Moroccan cut flowers and tomatoes. EU foreign ministers will meet again on 10 November to try to settle their differences.

Spanish minister Javier Solana had hoped to tie up the overall accord well ahead of the Euro-Mediterranean Conference in Barcelona on 27-28 November, thus smoothing the way for the conclusion of an EU/Morocco fisheries accord of vital political importance to the Spanish government.

But at a meeting of foreign ministers in Luxembourg this week, Solana succeeded only in answering Italian and Portuguese concerns over access for potatoes, oranges and canned sardines. The Netherlands and Germany dug their heels in over Commission proposals to grant Morocco a cut-flower quota of 5,000 tonnes, compared with exports last year of 2,100 tonnes, and the Dutch were joined by Belgium in resisting plans to allow 10,000 tonnes of Morocco's 150,000-tonne tomato quota into the EU during April.

French European Affairs Minister Michel Barnier was clearly frustrated by his colleagues' stubbornness. “When we begin discussions with the United States or other very distant areas over a free-trade area, I shall remember Moroccan cut flowers and tomatoes,” he warned.

But Commission officials hope ministers will be more willing to compromise once they have had time to examine the details of the package.