WRITTEN QUESTION E-0990/98

by Giuseppe Rauti (NI) to the Commission

(2 April 1998)

Subject: Action to avert the collapse of the Italian agricultural sector

Is the Commission aware of the increasingly serious situation of many important and traditional sectors of Italy's farming industry? Those principally affected by the crisis are producers of milk, rice, citrus fruit and oil, who have held a series of demonstrations.

This situation is mainly due to increasingly massive imports of agricultural products of the same type from other Mediterranean countries (and, in the case of rice, Vietnam); these products cost much less than their Italian equivalents because of the lower cost of labour in Morocco, Tunisia etc.

Italy is "obliged" to accept these imports because the European Union has signed various free trade agreements with Mediterranean third countries. Such countries import goods from the EU and have the right to export goods to it. But their imports are practically all industrial goods, whereas their exports are almost all agricultural products.

The result is that the most industrialized countries of the EU benefit while the agricultural sectors of the less industrialized countries are heavily penalized. Italy, which is the worst affected, often has to import agricultural products in which it could be entirely self-sufficient.

Can the Commission answer the following:

1. What are the figures for trade between the EU and Mediterranean third countries, broken down to show the EU's exports of industrial products and imports of agricultural products country by country?

2. Does the Commission intend to propose a "compensatory mechanism" for the benefit of Italy's agricultural sector, which seems to be increasingly seriously disadvantaged by the current situation?

Answer given by Mr Fischler on behalf of the Commission

(18 May 1998)

The Commission is sending direct to the Honourable Member and to Parliament's Secretariat a table which shows the volume of trade between the Community and Mediterranean countries, broken down into separate entries for agricultural products and for each Mediterranean country.

However, the Commission must qualify the Honourable Member's statement that the Mediterranean countries' imports from the Community consist almost entirely of industrial products while their exports are almost all agricultural products. Except in the case of Israel, Morocco and Turkey, Community agricultural exports to Mediterranean countries exceed agricultural imports from them; thus the Community's overall agricultural trade balance with the 12 Mediterranean countries is positive.

This development is not primarily attributable to the preferential tariffs which the Community has granted to the Mediterranean countries in respect of the agricultural sector, but rather to the trade structure which has evolved in the light of the scope and potential for production and because certain products are not produced in the countries concerned, with a resulting need for imports. In any event, beyond purely commercial considerations, the concessions granted to the Mediterranean countries as regards agriculture cannot be viewed in isolation from an overall assessment of the benefits which the Community can expect to derive from the creation of a Euro-Mediterranean Economic Area.

As regards the scope for implementing internal compensatory measures within Community markets in order to take into account the possible impact of the tariff concessions which the Community has granted to the Mediterranean countries, it should be noted that these aspects were considered when reforming the common agricultural policy and in Agenda 2000(1) in respect of the various sectors concerned.

(1) COM(97) 2000 final.