| ACP PRESS STATEMENT 6 - Sugar and Banana push get ACP ministers’ support Ministers from the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States re-affirmed their determination to push for the protection of sugar and bananas in the European Union market. They alluded to the Hong Kong Declaration which recognized the importance of long standing preferences for these commodities. The Ministers underlined their determination in strongly worded resolutions, which were adopted by the 87th session of the ACP Council of Ministers, which ended on Wednesday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. “Unless there is suitable treatment for products that are benefiting from longstanding preferences, ACP Sugar Supplying States will find it extremely difficult to associate themselves with any consensus,” the ministers said in the resolution. Two resolutions were adopted respectively for sugar and banana and the concerns expressed for both commodities were similar. The Ministers went on to say that if the outcomes of the WTO Doha Development Agenda negotiations are to be balanced, there must be suitable treatment for products that are currently benefiting from long standing preferences. “If this was not the case, ACP countries will find it extremely difficult to associate themselves with any consensus,” the ministers re-iterated. SUGAR The ACP ministers referred the European Union (EU) and the European Commission (EC) to the framework of the WTO Doha Negotiations to make full use of all the provisions of relevant texts and agreements such as the July 2004 Framework Agreement and the Hong Kong Declaration. Accordingly, they called on the Commission and the EU to ensure that sugar is not included as a tropical product, and to maintain the current Special Safeguard Clause for sugar products with high sugar content. In the event that sugar was designated by the EC as a sensitive product, sugar and products with high sugar content should benefit from the lowest Trade Rate Quota (TRQ) expansion, taking into account the significant level of imports vis-à-vis domestic consumption, and the lowest tariff cut over the longest possible implementation period with a sufficiently long grace period. The ACP Ministers also pressed that tariffs for sugar are bound in their current form in the context of tariff simplification. They highlighted the adverse impact of the reform of the Community’s sugar regime with 36 percent price cut effective on October 2009, on small island, landlocked and vulnerable economies of ACP States. They called on the Commission to examine with them the potential risk of buyers/importers trying to take advantage of price cuts (by delaying their purchases) and to put in place measures and mechanisms to safeguard the ACP Sugar Suppliers’ interests The ministers said that such effects will be further exacerbated by the soaring oil prices and thereby seriously affecting their terms of trade and balance payments as well as their capacity to successfully implement the Multi Annual Adaptation Strategies (MASS) financed by accompanying measures. They called on the Commission and the EU member states to find an appropriate solution, including additional support to address this situation. The sugar resolution further calls on the EC and the Economic Partnership Agreement negotiating regions to work closely to ensure that under the EPA sugar arrangements, no single ACP country is worse off and that the related implementation measures ensure that this objective is fully achieved. BANANAS Meanwhile, the Ministers urged EU to support ACP countries and to insist at the WTO that ACP countries concerned by the Banana dossier are involved, without discrimination, in any discussion on Bananas, including those held in the Green Room. ACP Ministers also want the EU to ensure that any solution arrived at which MFN countries, whether following negotiations or litigation, among other things, takes into account the interests of ACP countries by working towards a landing zone close to the current 176 Euros and an implementation period including a moratorium of at least eight years. The resolution also rejects any proposal to immediately and drastically reduce the current applied rate of 176 Euros per tonne by the so called down payment and further reduces the tariff to a much lower level after a relatively short implementation of three to six years. Speaking on the debate of the resolution, Dr Arnold Thomas, Head of Delegation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, said banana is not just a burning issue – it is a matter that burns. “It burns up our pay cheques, it burns up our livelihood, it burns up our employment and it burns up the level of socio-economic development that we have achieved over the past four decades,” he told the meeting. Dr Thomas said banana has been the main pillar that sustained his country’s development, and it is this level of development that has been severely threatened in recent years as a result of the many challenges at the WTO to the EU Regime for Importation and Sale of Bananas, and the consequent erosion of preferences which have negatively impacted on “our development.” Dr Thomas said in some islands some former banana farmers have turned to the more lucrative, by illegal practice of growing marijuana.“Some time ago in my island St. Vincent and the Grenadines some of these have been emboldened enough to form a Marijuana Growers Association and staged a march on the capital with the slogan: ‘If they don’t want our banana they will get out marijuana’,” he said.End Details contact: Robert Iroga Tel: +32 2 743 0617 Email: iroga@acp.int |
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