Welcome to the ACP Sugar website

The ACP Sugar Group are the nineteen African, Caribbean and Pacific states signatories to the ACP/EU Sugar Protocol.

These countries have enjoyed a long standing, traditional place in European sugar markets, and they have become an integral part of the EU sugar regime.

We hope our site will answer any questions you may have about ACP sugar and that you will find it interesting and informative.

What's new?

 The ACP sugar suppliers under the Sugar Protocol to the European Union are extremely dissappointed with the ruling of the WTO's Appellate Body on the EU Sugar Regime, the ACP Sugar Group said in a press release dated 29th April 2005.
  However, the ACP Sugar Group are encouraged by Commissioner Fischer Boel's statement, following the release of the Appellate Body report, that the Commission will continue to defend the valid interest of sugar producers and consumers in both the EU and ACP countries. Furthermore, the assurance by the Commission that the ACP farmers won't be out of pocket is heartening.

•  Download the ACP Sugar Group's Press Release here ...
•  See other news on WTO sugar dispute from sugartraders.co.uk

 

 Impact of the WTO decision on the EU Sugar Regime:  "Most developing country sugar exporters will be hurt by EU sugar regime reform", Mr. Paul Ryberg, counsel to the Mauritius Sugar Syndicate, said in a presentation on the impact of the WTO dispute of Australia, Brazil and Thailand to the International Sweeteners Colloquium, held in Tucson, Arizona on February 6-9, 2005.  A copy of the presentation and speaking notes, which include much supporting statistical data on, for example, the relative importance of ACP sugar exports, may be downloaded here:

•  Speaking notes of Mr Ryberg: "Developing Country Sugar Exporters Will Be Harmed"
•  Powerpoint:"Impact of EU Sugar Regime Reformon Developing Countries"

 

 Meeting of EU Agriculture Ministers, Ministers from ACP and LDC countries and Members of the European Commission. On 24 January 2005, an ACP/LDC ministerial declaration led by Minister Nandcoomar Bodha (Mauritius) (ACP Ministerial Spokesman) and Minister Gelal Yousiff Eldegeir (Sudan) (LDC Ministerial Spokesman), met with EU-25 Agriculture Ministers and Commissioners Marian Fisher-Boel (Agriculture), Peter Mandelson (Trade) and Louis Michel (Development) in the margins of the EU Agriculture Council at the Justus Lipsius building in Brussels. The Commission representatives presented the ACP ministers with an Action Plan to accompany the proposed reforms to the EU sugar regime, and five ACP and LDC ministers and the Chairman of the LDC London Sugar Group, Mr Graham Clark, responded with statements to the EU25 ministers. The meeting concluded with a commitment to maintain dialogue after the Commission's legal proposals are submitted, and the meeting was followed by a press conference.

Copies of the statements made by the ACP, LDC and EU ministers, and of Commissioners Fisher-Boel, Mandelson and Michel may be downloaded here:

•  President of the EU Agriculture Council, Minister Fernand Boden.
•  Commissioner for Agriculture, Mrs Mariann Fisher-Boel.
•  Commissioner for Trade, Mr Peter Mandelson.
•  Commissioner for Development, Mr Louis Michel.
•  ACP ministerial spokesman on Historical and Political Aspects.
•  Minister Mabili Dlamini (Swaziland) on Legal Aspects.
•  Minister Clement Rohee (Guyana) on Trade Dimensions.
•  Minister Roger Clark (Jamaica) on Socio-Economic Aspects.
•  LDC ministerial spokesman on the LDC proposal on sugar.
•  Mr Graham Clark, Chairman, LDC London Sugar Group on technical aspects.
 
Further information from the Luxembourg presidency, including video footage of the ensuing press conference, can be obtained here:
 
•  www.eu2005.lu
 

 15 October 2004 - ACPs and LDCs warn that the proposed EU sugar regime will devastate their sugar industries.   On 4th, 5th and 6th October 2004, representatives of ACP and LDC sugar industries and governments met in Brussels to consider their response the the proposals of the European Commission of 14th July 2004 to reform the EU sugar regime. Copies of the ACP response, press release, and the speech of Dr Ian McDonald, CEO of the Sugar Association of Caribbean, are available to download from links given below. During the week beginning 11th October, a team of ministers from ACP and LDC countries visited their counterparts in Europe in the United Kingdom, Poland, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium and Portugal.

The Hon N Bodha, Minister of Agriculture, Food Technology and Natural Resources of Mauritius, and ACP Ministerial Spokesman on Sugar, made the following points, inter alia, to his European counterparts:-

•  the ACP have weak and vulnerable economies and thousands of farmers depend on sugar cane; the Commission's reform proposals would be catastrophic for ACP countries;

•  bold structural reforms have already been started by the ACP sugar industries; such reforms had necessitated the laying off of workers and the rationalisation of factories, and the social and financial costs have been considerable;

•  the ACP-EU Sugar Protocol without remunerative prices would be meaningless; the ACP summit of Heads of State meeting in Maputo had stressed the necessity of safeguarding the benefits of the Protocol in compliance with Article 36.4 of the Cotonou Agreement, and also the need for remunerative prices; the UK in particular has moral and legal obligations to maintain the benefits of the Sugar Protocol;

•  whereas the price of the EU producer would go down, his earnings because of the decoupled payment would go down much less; there is a clear moral and legal need for parity of treatment between the two categories of sugar producer for the EU markets; the Minister stressed the need for full compensation for ACP producers just as would be applied to EU farmers and the need for a dedicated budgetary line.

For further information:

•  Download the ACP press release of 6 October.
•  Download the ACP response.
•  Speech of Dr Ian McDonald to the ACP workshop
•  Commission's sugar website (with proposals).
•  Sugar Traders website with further information.
 

 2 October 2003 - Free trade in sugar does not help the poorest. Reform of the EU sugar regime will affect not only the EU member states and candidates, but also countries that are associated with the EU through the preferential, regional, and multilateral trade agreements, says Research Scientist Ellen-Huan Niemi, of MTT in Finland, in a paper published by the European Network of Agricultural and Rural Policy Research Institutes (ENARPRI). Ellen Huan-Niemi contends that liberalization of the EU sugar regime would benefit only a few countries, especially Brazil, Thailand, Australia, or South Africa. The losers would be the ACP countries and the world's poorest countries because these countries would not be able to compete due to high production costs or scarcity of resources available for establishing the necessary infrastructure. As a result, "the rural poor will incur the bulk of the burden of structural change" to the EU sugar policy. "This will be working against the United Nations Millennium Development Goal of reducing poverty and hunger," says Ellen Huan-Niemi.

For more information:
•  Download the MTT report from CEPS.be
•  EU-ACP trade relations - key facts and figures
•  Commission working papers on EU sugar reform
 

 11 July 2003 - Australia, Brazil and Thailand have confirmed their request for a WTO panel to challenge to the EU Sugar Policy (DS 265, 266 and 283).

In a statement released today ACP notes that "The decision by Australia, Brazil and Thailand to request a panel under the Dispute Resolution Mechanism of the WTO at this stage, with regard to the EC Common Market organisation of Sugar dispute is utterly disappointing to say the least. The ACP States, who are suppliers of sugar under the Sugar Protocol which incorporates longstanding trading arrangements were repeatedly assured by Australia and Brazil that they would not take steps in their dispute with the EC which would directly or indirectly affect the interest of the ACP States concerned. It now appears that, despite those assurances which were made at the highest political level, the concerns of these ACP States, most of whom are vulnerable, LDCs, landlocked and small island States, and are mostly single commodity producers/exporters, have been ignored completely. This is most unfortunate."

The challenge principally asserts that the EU exports of C sugar are "cross-subsidized" because the world market price is less than EU costs of production. The challenge also attacks the offset of 1.6m of ACP and LDC sugar. South Africa has stated that they do not believe that the challenge is proving at all helpful, and the EU has also stated that the challenge is an attack on the EU’s trade preferences for developing countries. "And to add insult to injury, they are challenging the commitments which were agreed upon by all WTO members during the Uruguay Round and which are fully respected by the EU", Franz Fischler, EU Agriculture Commissioner said.
 
For more information:
•  Full text of ACP response
•  EU response
•  Sugartraders.co.uk website
 

 16 December 2002 - European Commission proposes WTO modalities. Dr. Franz Fischler, today presented the Agriculture Ministers and the 133 Committee with proposals setting out how the EU means to meet its commitments in Doha to liberalise farm trade. "It is an ambitious but realistic set of proposals, designed to show how seriously we mean to translate the Doha declaration into facts and keep to the Doha timescale. Unlike other WTO partners, we are not putting forward a "glossy" version where the packaging is worth more than the contents. And, again unlike others, we are not proposing that all the dismantling should come from everybody else. We are ready to contribute our share", Dr Fischler said.
The European Union proposals may be summarized as follows:-
Market access:
•15 - 35% tariff cuts as with URA;
• All developed and advanced developing countries to follow the EU lead and agree to "Everything But Arms" (EBA);
• All developing countries to offer 50% EBA to LDCs;
Export subsidies:
• "Substantial" volume cuts
• 45% value cuts "on average"
• Eliminate all export subsidies on certain products
Domestic support:
• 55% cut on aggregate AMS
Base period:
•2006 - 2012 (six years) for Developed Countries from URA final bound rates; 10 years for Developing Countries.

Download: Modalities Paper; Modalities Presentation; Memo.

 9 April 2002 - European Commission adopts negotiating proposal for Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). The Commission has submitted to EU ministers a negotiating strategy for EPAs for their approval. In a press release, EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy said: "In the war against poverty, Economic Partnership Agreements will be an instrument for development. They will help to boost trade and economic co-operation, helping ACP countries to integrate into the world economy and to realise their wealth-creating potential for the benefit of their populations." The basic principles and the timeframe for EPA negotiations are set out in the Cotonou Agreement, which was concluded between the EU and ACP countries in June 2000. The Cotonou Agreement states that negotiations for EPAs will take place between September 2002 and January 2008. More ...

 4 June 2001 - Zone of Turbulence Ahead! Mr David Roberts, Deputy Director General, European Commission, presented a thought provoking speech to the ACP Ministerial Conference on Sugar on April 23-26, 2001, in Georgetown, Guyana. The speech is reproduced on the Mauritius Sugar industry site PROSI.net. Mr Roberts concluded, "The Sugar Protocol has worked successfully for 26 years and for the last ten years it has worked particularly harmoniously. But we are now entering what aircraft captains call a "zone of turbulence". This is due to internal and external pressures on the Community's sugar regime. The regime's capacity for survival through its long life by making only minor adaptations is, however, remarkable. Is there a reason for you to have serious concern? Certainly. Should you despair? Certainly not. More ...

 27 April 2001 - ACP Sugar Ministers met from 23-27 April in Georgetown, Guyana for the Seventh Special Ministerial Conference on Sugar. The Conference, whose theme was "ACP Sugar: Managing Change in the New Millennium", was attended by representatives from ACP Governments and private sector organizations in the field of sugar, and a wide range of experts from amongst others the European Commission, WTO, UNCTAD and ISO. The Conference was honoured by the presence of the President of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, H.E. Mr Bharrat Jagdeo, who delivered a clear message to the Group on the importance of continued ACP solidarity to face the multiple challenges ahead. See Communiqué

 19 March 2001 - The UK House of Lords debated on the EBA initiative. Baroness Young initiated the debate. Of particular interest she said, "The Prime Minister of Mauritius has told the Prime Minister and other European leaders that the initiative will initially transfer highly needed benefits from small, vulnerable island states to the least developed countries. Then, at a later stage, markets will be disrupted with serious consequences for more ACP nations and the French departments d'Outre Mer. ACP sugar producers have amplified this and have argued their own case. They suggest that the way in which the EU decision is structured means that the negative impact will be borne wholly by more ACP sugar producers and that, "it will be the poor, not the rich, who bear the brunt of an initiative to help the poorest". I regard that as an extraordinary outcome for an initiative." More ...

 26 Feb 2001 - European Union foreign ministers have agreed the "Everything But Arms" (EBA) initiative by a qualified majority. Under EBA, there would be full liberalisation for LDC sugar on July 1, 2009. During the interim, duty-free quotas will be established based initially on best export figures for the LDCs during the 1990s plus 15 percent; the quotas are then increased by 15 percent a year during the interim period. The quotas are for raw sugar for refining. As is clear from the Commission's impact study, the budgetary and market impact for the European Union sugar market will be zero, however, according to the Reuters newsagency (report of 26.2.2001), the main ACP sugar losers are expected to be Mauritius, Fiji, Guyana, Jamaica, Trinidad, Belize and Swaziland. Click here for the DG Trade press release.

 15 Feb 2001 - The final report of the Netherlands Economic Institute study on the "Evaluation of the common organisation of the markets in the [EU] sugar sector" has now been released for publication. To read the study, please click here ...

 7 Feb 2001 - The European Commission has given Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy the green light to adapt the "Everything But Arms" proposal. Lamy commented: "I am confident that the room for manoeuvre I have been given will ensure the proposal enjoys the support of the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament so that EBA will become a reality as soon as possible." However, the revised EBA proposal has not been formally adopted by the Commission; Mr Lamy's green light means that when negotiating with Member States he can go as far as the revised proposal. To read more, please click here ...

 25 Jan 2001 - ASSUC "Everything But Arms" Impact Study published. The Association des Organizations Professionnelles du Commerce des Sucres pour les Pays de l'Union Européene (ASSUC) has prepared a study on EBA and sugar. To read the study, please click here ...

17 Jan 2000 - EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy secured a political mandate from the Commission to "fine-tune" the Everything But Arms (EBA) proposal. The "fine tuning" will lengthen the transition period for sugar, bananas and rice. To read more, please click here ...

20 Dec 2000 - Agriculture Commissioner Mr Franz Fischler has published an EBA impact study (pdf format 155kb) on the "Everything But Arms" (EBA) initiative on his website. For the ACP/EU sugar sector, Mr Fischler concludes: (i) LDC exports to the EU could amount to 2.7m tonnes; (ii) most of this sugar would be raws for refining, and some refining would be undertaken in EU beet sugar factories or even new refineries; (iii) SPS would be the first casualty of EBA; (iv) above SPS, additional EBA sugar would force A&B quota cuts, generating requests for compensation; (v) the cost of re-exporting equivalent quantities of EBA sugar would be charged to the FEOGA budget rather than to EU producers through the production levies; and (vi) if the refineries were "no longer interested" in ACP Protocol sugar, "this sugar would have to be publicly bought into intervention and then be disposed of as above".

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. For further details, please click here: The Sugar Protocol in the context of the new ACP/EU Partnership Agreement