Minister of Agriculture Dr Leslie Ramsammy has welcomed the extension of the European Union (EU) sugar quota from 2015 to 2020, which he credited to a major lobbying effort by Guyana and other ACP countries.
“There has been extensive lobbying and many in Guyana and the Caribbean believed that the Government and the other Governments that joined in the lobby were wasting their time that the Europeans will not extend their time beyond 2016. We believed that the European leaders would have listened to reason,” the minister said, according to a Government Information Agency (GINA) report.
The European Parliament voted on Monday to extend the sugar quota to 2020 after the existing arrangement for it to end in 2015 was changed.
According to Dr Ramsammy, after extensive petitioning the Europeans had indicated that they were not willing to extend the quota beyond 2016. “In other words they would have given a one-year extension. Guyana was vigorous in our lobby and at an African, Caribbean and Pacific Group (ACP) meeting that was shared by our Foreign Affairs Minister; the ACP countries had started a lobby that the quota arrangement should not come to an end in 2015 or in 2016. We should at minimum extend it to 2020 and even beyond,” he said.
The Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) launched in 1973, initially stated that the sugar protocol was indefinite. It was designed to compensate countries such as Guyana, which had, for hundreds of years, supported the economies of developed countries. In 2005/2006 period, this EPA was revised and resulted in a drop of 36% for the price of sugar supplied from ACP countries.
This move was seen as “a betrayal of trust” the minister said and the proposed action to end the sugar quota in 2015 was also viewed with distaste.
“We believed that the period of time for the industries to re-orient themselves was not enough and the mechanisation and modernisation of the sugar industry will take much longer than the period given to us. We also believed that this modernisation [had] to occur within a new reality, the reality of climate change. Because of that, we needed more extensive time for our industries to have to give up the preferential European market. That is why we thought that the lobbying effort must be tireless, must be vigorous and we mustn’t give up. We therefore, have shown by our resoluteness that we were correct in expending the energies we did to have the Europeans considered extension of the quota arrangement,” he said.
Ramsammy said he was proud that Guyana remained steadfast on this issue as it had the most to lose. If the quota had ended it would have allowed non-ACP members with cheaper sugar access to the EU market. This would have led to the lowering of prices which would have been disastrous for many sugar producing ACP countries.
The minister recalled that when the administration, under former President Bharrat Jagdeo, had led a similar lobbying effort for the re-negotiation of the economic partnership, it was met with scepticism. However, Jagdeo’s determination on the issue resulted in the EU making adjustments to two aspects of the agreement. “One, that the…Economic Partnership Agreement will not subsume the Treaty of Chaguaramas. And two, that the Economic Partnership Agreement will be subjected to periodic reviews, a review that is now coming up,” Dr Ramsammy said. He further noted that these changes should serve to strengthen the nation’s resolve to lobby against international actions that threaten survival.
The minister said that the extension from 2015-2020 will give the sugar industry another seven years to make interventions for its sustainability. The adjustments will be announced at a later date, GINA said.
