EU talks on sugar remain deadlocked

TOUGH talking on sugar reform at the European Union farm council meeting in Brussels failed to produce agreement yesterday, but new proposals were being drafted overnight.

A second compromise document was to have been presented to member states by the European Commission at teatime last evening, but this did not happen.

Instead a series of further trilateral meetings got underway.

The Commission intends to have the reworked document ready for presentation to the 25 agricultural ministers this morning with the hope that an agreement can be reached during the day.

Ireland is one of 11 member states opposed to the proposed reforms as outlined in the initial package published last year and in a first compromise paper tabled by Margaret Beckett, the British president of the council, on Tuesday.

Ms Beckett tried to persuade the blocking minority member states to change their minds in talks with their delegations yesterday, but there was no apparent breakthrough on the key issue of sugar beet prices.

Her first compromise offer stuck to a Commission blueprint that would see prices fall by 39% over four years instead of two. Beet growers in Ireland say this would force them out of production.

However, a spokesperson for the British presidency said last night there may be some limited scope to accommodate outstanding difficulties.

Austrian farm minister Josef Proell said it might be possible to reach a compromise, but the Commission has to move on the question of the price reduction and compensation for sugar beet farmers.

The spokesman for Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel said good constructive talks have been held with a number of member states. “But I don’t think we’re there yet,’ he said.

IFA president John Dillon, who’s monitoring the talks in Brussels, said that with no movement on the basic unviable beet price, the emphasis was switching to compensation for growers whose livelihoods would be decimated.

He said Agriculture and Food Minister Mary Coughlan, who is heading the Irish negotiating team, would have to secure a special package for Irish growers who would be wiped out under the EU Commission proposals.

Cllr Sean Sherlock, a Labour Party member of Cork County Council, said his contacts in Brussels, where he previously worked, indicated that Ireland, Italy and Spain led the opposition to the first compromise proposals.

Belgium, Netherlands, the Baltic states, Finland, Hungary and Portugal called for further efforts to be made on prices and compensation for farmers.