Agriculture Council (Hansard, 18 April 1995)

§ Mr. Waldegrave

This Council, at which I represented the United kingdom, again discussed the situation created by the strengthening of the German, Dutch, Belgian, Austrian and Danish currencies, which should result in 101W the revaluation of the corresponding green rates of exchange used in the common agricultural policy. All other member states could agree to a proposal that these revaluations, which the Commission had already delayed under its own powers, should be further delayed until after the Councils next meeting on 29 May.

I objected on the grounds that neither the trade distortions generated by these delays nor the budgetary costs of alternative courses of action had been properly considered; and that no clear indication had been given of how these problems would be tackled at the end of any further period of delay. The proposal was not adopted and it was agreed that these matters would be discussed urgently.

The Council adopted, with Portugal voting against, an extension of the existing sugar arrangements with some changes. The main changes are to enable beet sugar production quotas to be cut if necessary to enable the Community to observe its obligation under the GATT to restrict subsidised net exports; and to improve the guarantee of supplies of imported raw cane sugar to refiners.

I made it clear, as did the Swedish Minister, that I would have preferred a genuine reform of the sugar system but there was no support for this from others. The formula for allocating quota reductions, which all other member states were ready to accept as a compromise, means that the share of any cut that would fall on the United Kingdom is a lot less than our share of Community sugar production. It will be important to work for the export limit to be met by means other than quota cuts. The guarantee of raw sugar supplies is welcome and the details of the guarantee are considerably better than those in the Commissions original proposal.