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According to Caribbean press reports the EC has formally taken the decision to renounce the sugar protocol at the end of September 2007 in line with its proposals for market access for ACP exports set out in its April 4th 2007 statement. The EC holds that it is ‘committed to safeguarding the benefits of the sugar protocol’, but that ‘preserving these benefits does not necessarily mean preserving the protocol itself’. It further maintains ‘the most important part of the protocol … preferential treatment in the EU market’, will be retained, through the removal of all tariffs on ACP sugar exports by 2015. In this context the EC sees the move as enhancing the trading relationship with ACP regions by creating ‘a system that is viable in the world of today’. The EC rejected suggestions that the renunciation of the sugar protocol was ‘reneging on the development goals set out in the Cotonou Agreement’, emphasising that the EPAs would help in building regional markets and competitiveness. As part of the EPA currently being negotiated, the EU has offered to provide tariff- and quota-free access for sugar and all exports from the Caribbean and such an arrangement ‘is not compatible with an agreement that provides special price and volume guarantees to some Caribbean countries on sugar but not all’. Therefore if new regional EPAs are to come into effect ‘our current arrangements for sugar must be changed’. The EC also pointed out that the current arrangement was not compatible with the reformed EU sugar regime which was dismantling guaranteed prices for the EC’s own producers. Senior EC officials claimed that ‘we cannot justify paying guaranteed prices for Caribbean producers when we no longer guarantee prices for our own producers’. It is claimed by the EC that the package it is putting together for ACP countries, which includes unlimited duty-free market access (subject to a safeguard clause), a floor price for a number of years and financial assistance to invest in new technologies and measures to enhance competitiveness, are all intended to smooth the transition.
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