THE CHALLENGE by Brazil and Australia in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to the European Union's (EU) Sugar Regime took centre stage at the just concluded 14th meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) in Georgetown, Guyana.
According to Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, K.D. Knight, sugar was given priority attention, because a successful challenge to the EU Sugar Regime could result in the destruction of the sugar industry in African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) sugar producing countries. In light of this, he said CARICOM agreed to send a lobby mission comprising the Enlarged Bureau of the ACP sugar group consisting of Mauritius, Fiji, Guyana and Swaziland to Brazil for consultations on the matter.
"Some of the strategies agreed on include urging Brazil to proceed in the context of the WTO trade negotiations on agriculture and to seek to establish a mechanism which will prevent a resort to the WTO dispute process panel and promote discussion among all the interested parties, including ACP countries to see if we can arrive at a formula which would result in the preservation of the preferential arrangements currently applicable under the ACP-EU Sugar Protocol. It was also agreed to send the team to Australia to hold talks with the authorities there," he said.
In the meantime, Mr. Knight is enlisting the support of other Commonwealth countries on the matter. At a meeting with the New Zealand Non Resident Ambassador, Wade Armstrong, the Foreign Trade Minister sought New Zealand's support in persuading Australia to withdraw the challenge.
Mr. Knight noted that while Brazil and Australia have indicated that there was no desire to disturb the ACP-EU Sugar Protocol the fact is that, once there is a successful challenge
to the EU's internal pricing
mechanism, there will be implications for the preferential sugar arrangement in relation to the price paid to ACP protocol suppliers.
"For us there are three basic ingredients access, preference and price and if the mechanism is disturbed then the price will be affected, if the price is affected then it means that there will be serious consequences for that industry," he observed.
