Ross Sheil, Staff Reporter
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) could be persuaded to moderate its price cut for African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP)-produced sugar, according to a visiting European parliamentarian.
Glenys Kinnock, Member of the European Parliament (MEP), said yesterday she was "fairly confident" that a report by the parliamentary rapourteur, which recommends the cut be reduced from 39 per cent to 25 per cent, would become the parliamentary position.
Mrs. Kinnock was speaking during a press briefing at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel, St. Andrew, as part of a visit to Jamaica by Members of the EU-ACP Joint Parliamentary Assembly.
WTO RULING AGAINST IT
She said her assessment was based on dialogue with her fellow MEPs. The cuts are part of the EU's reform of its sugar policy which follows a ruling against it by the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The cuts will be phased in over two years beginning next year.
Mrs. Kinnock compared the plight of sugar-dependent communities to British mining communities affected by pit closures in the 1980s which, she said, were saved by EU funding of 1.3 billion Euros.
"It can be done, it is not a hopeless situation provided there is the political will," she said.
The EU however plans to give the 18 sugar producing ACP countries a total of 40 million Euros in compensation. She said 1.8 million Euros of this would be consumed by administrative costs. The UK had proposed 100 million Euros which was refused as was a subsequent proposal of 80 million Euros.
The compensation is currently being funded by the European Parliament's Development and Cooperation Committee, of which Mrs. Kinnock is a member. She wants the EU's Agricultural Council, which controls almost 50 per cent of the EU's overall budget to fund the compensation. However, as she admitted, it has budgetary independence from the European Parliament.
UK SUPPORT PLEDGED
Speaking on Wednesday during his two-day visit to Jamaica, United Kingdom Foreign Secretary Jack Straw pledged U.K. support for the ACP.
"I think we in the U.K. have got the point and I'm just working with some of my European colleagues to make sure they get that as well," Mr. Straw said. "The hope that I have is that adequate and timely transitional arrangements would be put in place."
Both Mrs. Kinnock and Member of Parliament for South Central St. Catherine, Sharon Hay-Webster, co-presidents of the ACP Joint Parliamentary Assembly, stressed that there was still room for negotiation. They said the sentiment was shared by Prime Minister P.J. Patterson with whom they met earlier yesterday.
Mr. Patterson helped negotiate the Sugar Protocol agreement, signed between the EU and ACP in 1975. This guaranteed fixed quantities of ACP sugar at preferential prices over an indefinite period of time to be imported by the EU.
He will on Tuesday announce Jamaica's action plan for the sugar industry upon which the EU is set to decide its level of assistance to the industry. The European Parliament will begin its final debate on sugar in January.
