Beet quota regime to be rolled over until 2006
Beet quota regime to be rolled over until 2006
SUGAR growers can look forward to another five years of quotas and guaranteed prices, following this weeks council decision to roll over the existing regime until 2006.
After months of haggling between the commission, which wanted just a two-year extension, and member states, most of whom favoured the status quo, a compromise was reached on Tuesday.
Sugar quotas will be permanently cut by some 115,000t a year, leading to about a 1% drop in contract tonnages for individual growers.
Storage aids to processors, which help finance the orderly marketing of sugar throughout the year, will also be phased out. This could have the effect of destabilising C beet prices, if more is put on the world market earlier in the season. Crucially, EU farm commissioner, Franz Fischler, has won the right to make further studies next year, with a view to bringing forward fresh proposals for change in 2003. "This will give us a better insight into what needs to be done to allow proper competitiveness in this sector," he said.
But the expectation is that quotas and support prices will remain at least until 2006, when the new "everything but arms" legislation takes effect, opening the EU market to sugar from the worlds 48 poorest countries.
"We welcome this outcome," said Betty Lee in the NFUs Brussels office. "It will provide continuity and allow for sensible, managed change, rather than the massive overhaul the commission was originally after." *