A Brief History

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Sugar cane is linked with human settlements in most ACP sugar supplying countries. Sugar cane became established in these ACP countries owing to its remarkable adaptability to their prevailing climates; whilst numerous attempts to undertake commercial cultivation of other crops failed.

The relationship between the European Union and the 77 countries of the African, Caribbean and Pacific group has developed on the basis of successive conventions, which have formed, since 1975, the framework for co-operation structures and mechanisms between these two groups. Today, 18 ACP states are able to export cane sugar under the ACP/EU Sugar Protocol of the Agreement of Special Preferential Sugar.

Imperial Preference and the CSA
From Yaoundé to Lomé
Accession of the UK to the EEC and Accession of the CSA to the EU Sugar Regime
From Lomé to Cotonou

Imperial Preference and the CSA

On 1 September 1919, a new regime of preferential tariff treatment was extended to British Empire Sugar at varying rates, and then between 1925 and 1928, preference was established for Empire Sugar.

In 1928, the duty scale was altered in order to protect the British refiners against the import of refined sugar. In return for the protection thus afforded to them, the United Kingdom refiners gave an undertaking to the Government that they would buy Commonwealth sugar rather than foreign sugar, and that the whole benefit of the tariff preference would accrue to the Commonwealth producer.

During World War II, and for several years after, the British government bought all the exportable surpluses of the Commonwealth sugar industries at prices much better than those prevailing before the war, but for the most part well below the ruling world market prices.

In 1948, discussions began on a long-term agreement. The British government wished to obtain assured supplies from the sterling area, both for balance of payments reasons and in order to lift the rationing of sugar as soon as possible. Governments of Commonwealth territories, on the other hand, wanted to re-equip and expand their industries on a sound basis.

The result was the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement (CSA), signed in London on 21 December 1951, which gave formal effect to the principles which had been followed during the preceding years.

The objectives of the CSA were stated as follows: "This Agreement is formalised from the general understanding that has been reached between the parties that is desirable on the terms and conditions arrived at to have a long-term agreement for supplying sugar to the United Kingdom, for developing the production of sugar in the Commonwealth countries and for the orderly marketing of that sugar."

Under the CSA, irreducible import quotas were established for Britain and there was a single Commonwealth price, the 'negotiated price'. In 1968, the concept of indefinite duration was introduced in the CSA.

From Yaoundé to Lomé

The European Economic Community (EEC) was founded in 1952 by six countries: Belgium, France, Germany Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. The Treaty of Rome (1952), in its Article 39, established the aims and principles of the Common Agricultural Policy. The EEC sugar markets were organized differently in each founding member state until the establishment of a common organization of the markets in 1968: the EU sugar Regime.

It was at the end of the 1950's that cooperation between the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries and the considered as an entity was born. In 1958, the six founding member states of the EEC decided to grant financial aid to the countries and regions under their jurisdiction at the time.

During the years that immediately followed, most of these countries gained their independence and entered into an association with the European Community. The road was now open for dialogue and cooperation, and this eventually led to the signing in 1963 of the first Yaoundé Convention between the Associated African and Malagasy States (AAMS) and the EEC of Six.

The Yaoundé Convention was a major landmark initiating a generation of comprehensive five-yearly trade and aid agreements, freely and collectively negotiated between an enlarging EEC and an enlarging group of developing countries from Africa and later the Caribbean and Pacific.

In 1973, came the enlargement of the EEC from six to nine countries with the accession of the United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark. This significant enlargement, especially by the membership of the UK, led to many Commonwealth countries - those of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific - seeking to establish a cooperation relationship with the newly enlarged European Community. Thus it was that in July 1973, seated around the negotiation table were not only the AAMS countries and the enlarged EEC but also the Commonwealth states from African, Caribbean and Pacific regions and certain other states. The general sentiment of all participants was a clear desire for a new international development cooperation policy.

In the eighteen months that followed, the three groups of countries (A, C and P) speaking with "one voice" managed to put aside their divergences and to pursue their common interests. Thus it was that the then spokesman of the African countries was able to speak on behalf of all the ACP states when he said, "Thus you have before you (...) a single group of ACP countries which wanted to recognize their common destiny (...)".

Accession of the UK to the EEC and Accession of the CSA to the EU Sugar Regime

The United Kingdom joined the European Economic Community in 1974. Prior to that date, Britain had already tabled a proposal that specific provision should be made to allow the importation of guaranteed tonnages of sugar which the UK had been purchasing at negotiated prices under the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement.

On 21 November 1970, the European Commission acknowledged the need to safeguard the interests of the developing countries party to the CSA and to provide reasonable access into the enlarged Community for their sugar. The Commission suggested that the methods for implementing these proposals should be discussed in 1975.

On 11 May 1971, the Council of Ministers of the six founding member states of the EU agreed on a proposal which was presented to Britain at a joint session on 12-13 May 1971. This proposal was later enshrined in Protocol 22 annexed to the Treaty of Accession of the UK to the EEC. The case of sugar would be settled within the framework of the relations to be established between the "Associated States" and the enlarged Community, and bearing in mind, with regard to sugar exports, the importance of this product to the economies of ACP developing countries.

The text of the Protocol 22 of the UK Treaty of Accession reads: "The Community will have as its firm purpose the safeguarding of the interests of the countries referred to in this Protocol whose economies depend to a considerable extent on the export of primary products, and particularly of sugar. The question of sugar will be settled within this framework, bearing in mind, with regards to exports of sugar, the importance of this production for the economies of several of these countries and of the Commonwealth countries in particular."

The chief British negotiator, Mr Geoffrey Rippon, the Minister of State at the Foreign Office, stated to the House of Commons that, "the Community's offer was a specific and moral commitment and that the assurances which successive British Governments had given to the developing countries had now been double-banked by the Community's commitment". He added, "I can now say this to the developing sugar producing countries of the Commonwealth: there would be room in the enlarged Community, of which Britain would be a part, for present quantities of sugar from these countries at remunerative prices, and for the development of beet sugar production."

On 22 January 1972, on the conclusion of its negotiations with the Six, the United Kingdom signed the Treaty of Accession, of which Protocol 22 was a part, and became a full member of the EEC on 1 January 1973.

Negotiations between the EEC and the ACP States started in Brussels on 25th July 1973 and ended on 1st February 1975 with an agreement on a new Convention of Association (the Lomé Convention) between the EC and the ACP States.

The Sugar Protocol, which had been negotiated separately, took effect on 28th February 1975 pending the entry into force of the Convention of Lomé. The Protocol incorporated the essential guarantees of duration, remunerative prices and export quotas which were contained in the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement and for which the developing sugar exporting countries of the Commonwealth had been struggling over so many years to retain.

The Sugar Protocol, finally agreed in 1975, effectively translated a UK commitment to the Commonwealth sugar producing states (excluding Australia) into an EU commitment to the ACP States.

From Lomé to Cotonou

On 23 June 2000 the new Partnership Agreement between the 77 ACP countries and the 15 member states of the European Union was signed in Cotonou. The ACP/EU Sugar Protocol is now annexed to Annex V of the new ACP/EU Partnership Agreement.

The Agreement lasts for twenty years and contains a clause allowing it to be revised every five years. Alongside the Agreement is a financial protocol. Covering each five-year period, this indicates the total resources that are available to the ACP through the European Development Fund (EDF). For the period now to start, the EDF (called the 9th EDF) contains euro 15.2 billion for the ACP. In addition, outstanding funds from previous EDFs can be used (approximately euro 10 billion).

The Cotonou Agreement builds on twenty-five years of ACP-EU cooperation under four successive Lomé Conventions. This provided a model of development cooperation based on the principles of partnership, dialogue, contractually agreed rights and obligations and predictability of (financial) support.

Economic and trade cooperation is the first pillar of ACP-EU cooperation. However, compared to previous Lomé Conventions, the trade regime will undergo a profound transformation. The current all-ACP non-reciprocal tariff preferences will be maintained until 31 December 2007. From 2008, a set of reciiprocal Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) or alternative trade arrangements will normally replace them, following negotiations that will begin in September 2002. These agreements should be compatible with the rules of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). ACP countries are invited to sign as groups or individually, building on their own regional integration schemes.