MEPs call for more EU aid to sugar exporters

By David Cronin

Date: 06/10/05

MEPs will next week call for the doubling of aid to sugar-exporting poor countries hurt by reforms to the EU's sugar regime.

Although the European Commission has recommended that €40 million should be given to sugar-dependent African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states during 2006, a Parliament report describes the offer as "clearly inadequate".

French Liberal Bernard Lehideux, author of the Parliament's position, cited estimates that ACP countries would incur annual losses of €400m because of the Commission's recommended 39% drop in the EU's guaranteed price for sugar.

Eighteen ex-French and British colonies in the ACP region are signatories of a 1975 sugar protocol with the EU, under which they export a fixed quota of cane to the Union at the same price that European beet growers are paid.

The paper is expected to be endorsed by Parliament on 13 October. But EU officials say that MEPs' efforts could be thwarted by the Council of Ministers, which will decide on sugar reform in November.

Any move to exceed the €40m threshold would need the unanimous backing of EU governments. Germany, is opposed to raising the aid for budgetary reasons.

Louis Michel, the commissioner for development and humanitarian aid, has said that the sugar assistance scheme is based on the "actual needs" of ACP countries.

But Jamaica, which has suffered a slump in sugar revenues in recent years, is pushing for €168m per year.

Article anticipates the discussion at the European Parliament's of measures for countries which are signatories to the 1975 Sugar Protocol. In the light of the proposed reform of the EU's Common market organisation for sugar it was expected that the countries in question would experience substantial losses. The European Parliament's report was drafted by French Liberal Bernard Lehideux and was expected to be discussed on 13 October 2005.

European Parliament: Legislative Observatory: COD/2005/0117, External aid: financial and technical assistance to ACP countries that are signatories to the Sugar Protocol following the reform of the common organisation of the market in sugar COM http://europarl.europa.eu/oeil/FindByProcnum.do?lang=2&procnum=COD/2005/0117

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