REFORM OF THE EU SUGAR REGIME (10514/05,
10598/05)
Letter from Lord Bach, Minister for Sustainable
Farming and Food, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
to the Chairman
I am writing further to my letters of 22 November
and 9 December 2005[93]
to bring you up to date with developments on the sugar reform
dossier.
We will very shortly be letting you have a formal
Government response to the report from Sub-Committee D which Tim
Renton forwarded to Margaret Beckett under cover of his letter
to her of 9 December 2005.
In the meantime, following delivery of European
Parliament Opinions on the original reform proposals on 19 January
2006, the Austrian Presidency has been organising meetings of
the Special Committee for Agriculture and its Sugar Working Group
to examine three draft legal instruments prepared by the European
Commission to give effect to the compromise agreement reached
under our Presidency at the November 2005 Agriculture and Fisheries
Council.
That process is now virtually complete and the
Austrian Presidency's current plan is to invite Member States
to adopt all three Regulations at the Council meeting on 20 February
under the "false B" point procedure, which will allow
those Member States not in agreement to make short statements
explaining their position.
This will therefore take place before your Committee
has had an opportunity to consider our response to the report
from Sub-Committee D and to complete its own deliberations. In
the circumstances, however, and particularly given the need for
early legal certainty so that all concerned can take appropriate
steps before the new regime takes effect from 1 July 2006, I hope
you understand that we will not be able to maintain a scrutiny
reservation on 20 February but will need to signify our definitive
agreement.
The texts as they now stand do contain some
variations from what was agreed in November. These are mainly
technical, except in respect of a new power for the Commission
to vary quota allocations in the first year of the new regime
if this is necessary in order to stabilise the market. Member
States are content with this approach, which reflects the Commission's
latest assessment of the likely balance of supply and demand.
As with other aspects of implementation, this will be subject
to detailed rules to be adopted under Management Committee procedure
once the new Regulations are published and take effect.
15 February 2006
Letter from Lord Rooker, Minister of State
for Sustainable Farming and Food, Department for Environment,
Food and Rural Affairs to the Chairman
I am writing to follow-up the commitment given
by my predecessor Lord Bach in the debate in the House of Lords
on 23 March 2006 regarding reform of the EU sugar regime, to provide
to Parliament the Government's full and final Regulatory Impact
Assessment.
This updates and supersedes the analysis provided
in the Government's Partial RIA published in June 2005. As you
will see, it now includes the impact of the agreement on reform
reached at the November 2005 Agriculture Council and formally
adopted in February this year.
23 May 2006
Letter from the Chairman to Gareth Thomas
MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for International
Development
I write regarding the above proposal which EU
Sub-Committee D (Environment and Agriculture) scrutinised in their
report Too much or too little? Changes to the EU Sugar Regime
(18th Report, session 2005-06, HL Paper 80). We note that
the proposal was adopted in February.
We would be grateful to receive an update as
to the EU funding and other measures that will be made available
for each of the years 2007-13 to Sugar Protocol countries affected
by the reform of the EU sugar regime. We note that the proposal
aimed to establish country-specific adaptation programmes with
each of the countries affected to ensure that the funding provided
is tailored to each country. We would be pleased if you could
provide details of the programmes that have been agreed, and could
give an overall assessment of the progress made in offering financial
and technical assistance to Sugar Protocal countries.
5 June 2006
93 Correspondence with Ministers, 45th Report of
Session 2005-06, HL Paper 243, p 364-366. Back
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