Sugar: Our Story

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On 22 June 2005, the European Commission published legislative proposals to reform the Common Market Organisation (CMO) for Sugar, which calls for severe reductions in EU sugar prices and an end to the current system of national quotas.

ACP countries have traditionally played an integral role in the EU sugar regime, supplying fixed quantities of sugar at preferential rates to the EU market under the terms of the ACP-EU Sugar Protocol. The provisions of the Commission's reform proposal would spell disaster for ACP sugar supplying states and inevitably lead to the destruction of centuries old traditions of sugar production with devastating socio-economic consequences.

It is estimated that the Commission's proposal would lead to a loss in income of up to €400 million annually in ACP countries. The knock on effects of this reform, which hardly bear contemplating, would include:

macro-economic instability;
the crippling of national efforts to meet the UN Millennium Development Goals;
the closure of countless estates;
the complete undermining of modernisation efforts already underway within the sugar industry;
the failure of smallholders' cooperatives and collapse of local farmers' banks;
massive unemployment, rural instability and urban migration;
a dramatic and alarming increase in poverty;
increased crime;
national destablization in all ACP countries and heightened insecurity in the Caribbean region; and
environmental degradation.

Through the links to the left, you can learn more about the vital role of sugar in the ACP countries' economies and their position on the reform of the EU Sugar Regime.