John Myers Jr., Agriculture Coordinator
Peter Mandelson, EU Trade Commissioner.
SUGAR INDUSTRY stakeholders here are cautiously optimistic about the prospect of increased aid allocation for reforming the local sugar industry, opting instead to await official word from the European Union on the level increase in financial assistance it plans to give African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries.
This, after the EU's trade commissioner, Peter Mandelson disclosed last week in Brussels, Belgium, that the EU had agreed to increase the financial assistance to ACP countries from ¤40 million in 2007 under the Sugar Action Plan.
WAIT AND SEE APPROACH
However, Mr. Mandelson, who was addressing journalists from the Caribbean and Latin America, did not disclose how much more would be given, stating that the additional amount had not yet been agreed on.
Derick Heaven, executive chairman of the Sugar Industry Authority (SIA) on Monday said he was adopting a wait and see approach to the announcement, based on previous experience with the EU.
"The EU continues to play mind games in that, from the inception of the reform process, they pass information to the ACP via the media and you are left to guess what is really official and what is not official," he said in an interview with Farmers Weekly.
Alan Rickards, chairman of the All-Island Cane Farmers Association believes the latest announcement by the EU is just another ploy to elicit reaction from the group.
"Since this whole thing began about the change in the regime, we have constantly had to discover the change in the situation via the media. What they do is fly a kite and then gauge the reaction," Mr. Rickards said yesterday.
Furthermore, he said his understanding is that the increased amount was still less than the figure being sought by the ACP group.
Guyana's president and CARICOM's spokesman on agriculture, Bharrat Jagdeo, in commenting on the announcement, said "From my understanding, this (increased package) would be somewhere around ¤160-odd million."
This, he said, was less than the ¤190 million the ACP was seeking.
MAJOR BREAKTHOUGH
Ambassador Heaven, however, said the announcement was a major breakthrough for the ACP group.
He said it was an indication that the EU is "coming to their senses to realise that they have more than just a moral obligation to be reasonable and seems to indicate that they are tending towards a settlement that is better than what was being advocated."
The CARICOM agriculture spokesman wants the region to be cautious in expecting or commenting too much.
"We just want to wait, given our experience with the commission and their changing positions. We will just wait until the final figure is announced to say whether it meets our expectations or it is a disappointing figure," Mr. Jagdeo said in an interview after a high level meeting between the EU and CARICOM leaders at the recently-concluded EU/Latin America and Caribbean summit in Vienna, Austria.
