Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, today Parliament has to decide on the proposal for a Council regulation on the common organisation of the markets in the sugar sector. In its explanatory statement, the Commission stresses that the COM has satisfactorily fulfilled many of its objectives and legitimately proposes that the status quo with regard to prices be maintained, but only for two years and with adjustments contradicting the assessment initially made by the Commission. It, moreover, proposes to carry out a series of particularly delicate and complex studies in record time to provide a basis for a proposal for fundamental reform in two years’ time. The Council was not wrong-footed by this approach and opted to renew this COM for a further five-year period. This draft comes before us at a time when the agricultural industry is experiencing one of the worst crises with which it has ever had to deal. Is that, however, sufficient reason to reform a COM which, even in the estimation of the Commission, has fulfilled its objectives? I do not think so. That is why I think it reasonable to allow this COM to continue to operate on the present basis for a period of five years. This is the proposal I put to you today as your rapporteur. My first observation is this: from a great many of the various parties I contacted in preparing my report I heard fairly constant criticism of the excessive Community price for sugar. To clarify the reasons for this situation, I think I ought to point out that the common organisation of the markets in the sugar sector is atypical in more ways than one. This organisation of the markets is actually based on a production quotas system. This entails strict supervision of the volumes produced. In addition to this self-regulation between production, importing and exporting, the producers must bear the bulk of the expenditure incurred due to this COM. The EU budget handles only the financing of the sugar exports corresponding to the preferential imports granted to developing countries which are beneficiaries of the sugar protocol annexed to the Cotonou Agreement. Consequently, the burden of this COM is particularly light as far as European Union finances are concerned in relation to the importance of the sugar beet sector. It is true that the corollary of this situation is a specific internal price. Throughout the debates leading up to this report, there were many participants who took the opportunity to highlight the artificial nature of the Community price in relation to the world price. This criticism which has been widely expressed in various reports and media also needs some clarification. Firstly, we have to put into context any reference to a world price, since it cannot be seen as representative of the transactions actually carried out. Secondly, the objectivity which the European Parliament must display in this matter leads me to point out that, in real terms, the Community price has been in a steady decline for around fifteen years. Moreover, 75% of sugar is consumed in the form of processed products. The price of these sugar products fluctuates quite independently of the price of sugar. I should note, moreover, that such products are no more expensive in the European Union than they are in other countries. My second observation is that several studies refer to the lack of competition within the European Union in the sugar sector. Competition is specifically one of the points warranting in-depth study on the part of the Commission services within the next two years. For the time being, there is one observation that must be made. There is healthy competition between sugar manufacturers because intra-Community trade is more significant than the Commission indicates, accounting for over 30% of sugar consumption, as such, and 26% in the form of processed products. Finally, to my last observation regarding the effects upon the Community market and the ACP countries of the decision adopted 15 days ago by the Council on the initiative for the Least Developed Countries. We have just discussed this, and this initiative too is in keeping with the European Union’s commitment to launching the round of multilateral talks, a matter on which Parliament is to deliver its opinion tomorrow. Basically, I think that, for the ACP countries, this initiative will have significant implications, which have not been assessed clearly by the Commission. That is why both the studies which the Commission wishes to undertake in the context of a reform of the COM in sugar and the assessment it is to undertake in 2005 of the transitional phase of the LDC initiative are of fundamental importance. It must take account of the concerns of the ACP countries, which traditionally export their produce to the European Union. Ladies and gentlemen, I wished, in the five minutes available, to share these observations which I thought important, before you declared your opinion on the matter tomorrow. To sum up, I should like to thank the Commissioner for his contribution, and I hope that this evening he will be able to expand a little upon his point of view of Parliament’s draft text. I would like to thank all the officials in Parliament’s secretarial service for the invaluable help they have given me in drawing up this report, as well as all the fellow Members who took a very active part in this draft. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE