ISDS Case Map
sugar/sweetners
Last week, the EU unilaterally renounced a 32-year sugar protocol that had guaranteed fixed quotas and prices for ACP countries, with no clear indications of how exactly sugar will be treated in the new EPAs.
Caribbean trade and political officials are fuming at the European Union's decision last Friday to scrap a 32-year-old agreement with African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) sugar-exporting countries, describing the action as "a slap in the face" of the region.
L'Europe pourrait accorder des quotas régionaux pour l'exportation de sucre. Ce qui placerait le Maurice et d'autres pays d'Afrique, des Caraïbes et du Pacifique en situation de concurrence face aux gros producteurs dont le Cuba et le Brésil.
The proposed economic partnership agreements (EPAs), which are due to come into force beginning next year, may undermine the benefits of another European Union trade initiative, called Everything-But-Arms, for the sugar industry.
Under the FTA, El Salvador could export up to 60,000 tonnes of sugar tariff-free to Taiwan each year
To many sugarcane-dependent families in western Kenya, January 2008 will come with adverse consequences to livelihoods and life itself as Kenya joins more efficient sugar producers in the free market regimes of COMESA and EPA.
The Sugar Association of the Caribbean (SAC) is calling for a substantial improvement in the current access of sugar to the European Union (EU) market.
The African Caribbean Pacific sugar group has adopted a united negotiating position on the European Union's Economic Partnership Agreement.
African, Caribbean and Pacific countries need to press for increased protocol tonnage to safeguard itself, a scholar advised.
The African, Carribean, Pacific countries are determined to safeguard the benefits the Sugar Protocol provided and would explore avenues to uphold its position, says ACP Sugar Ministerial chairman Dr Arvin Boolell.
