The European Parliament’s agriculture committee on January 23, 2013 voted to maintain until 2020 the European Union’s national beet sugar production quotas, which means that the dedicated allotment for sugar from Guyana and other ACP countries will continue up to that period instead of ending in 2015 as originally planned.
Extension of the quota had been lobbied for by Guyana and other members of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of countries. The ending of the quotas was to be the last step in EU reforms of its sugar market which began in 2006 and saw the repudiation of the longstanding sugar protocol with the ACP and a phased 36% cutting of the price paid by the EU for sugar. Guyana and other countries had argued that the ending of the quotas would create instability in the market and devastate sugar producing countries. The EU is the main