Council Regulation (EC) No 1260/2007 of 9 October 2007 amending Regulation (EC) No 318/2006 on the common organisation of the markets in the sugar sector

27.10.2007 EN Official Journal of the European Union L 283/1
COUNCIL REGULATION (EC) No 1260/2007
of 9 October 2007
amending Regulation (EC) No 318/2006 on the common organisation of the markets in the sugar sector
THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
,
Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, and in particular Article 37 thereof,
Having regard to the proposal from the Commission,
Having regard to the opinion of the European Parliament,
Whereas:
(1) In order to maintain the structural balance of the market, the Commission may decide to withdraw sugar from the market. In the case where a preventive withdrawal is decided, it is necessary to limit the scope of the obligation provided for in Article 6(5) of Council Regulation (EC) No 318/2006 (1), so as to avoid imposing on sugar undertakings an obligation to pay the minimum price for quantities of beet corresponding to their entire quota, including those quantities which may be produced beyond the withdrawal threshold.
(2) In accordance with Article 10(2) of Regulation (EC) No 318/2006, the Commission is to decide by the end of February 2010 on carrying out a linear reduction of national and regional quotas, with a view to adjusting these quotas to a sustainable level after the expiry of the restructuring scheme established by Council Regulation (EC) No 320/2006 of 20 February 2006 establishing a temporary scheme for the restructuring of the sugar industry in the Community (2).
(3) The outermost regions referred to in Article 299(2) of the Treaty do not fall under the scope of Regulation (EC) No 320/2006. Consequently those regions should be excluded from the final cut by which the Commission is entitled to adjust quotas after the expiry of the restructuring scheme.
(4) Article 4a of Regulation (EC) No 320/2006 provides the possibility for growers of beet and cane intended for quota production to submit a direct application for restructuring aid provided that they cease to deliver sugar to the undertakings to which they were bound by delivery contracts in the previous marketing year. As a result of the acceptance of such applications, Member States are to reduce the quota of the undertakings concerned within the limit of the 10 % referred to in the second indent of Article 11(1) of Regulation (EC) No 318/2006. It is in this context necessary to amend that Article, so as to allow for the definitive reduction of quotas allocated to the undertakings.
(5) A sound management of sugar in public intervention means that sugar should be resold on the market as soon as market trends allow for it in order to avoid a long storage period with risks of deterioration of quality. It is considered appropriate to allow the possibility of resale as industrial sugar.
(6) Article 19 of Regulation (EC) No 318/2006 provides the possibility to withdraw sugar from the market where it is necessary in order to maintain the structural level of the markets at a price level close to the reference price. The application of this measure is currently based on a percentage, common to all Member States and applicable to all production under quota. Recent experience has shown that such a linear application may be counterproductive, since producers are encouraged to produce above their contractual needs as a precaution against a possible compulsory storage of the quantities withdrawn.
(7) It is considered that the objective of withdrawal will be better achieved if the withdrawal coefficient can be preventively fixed by mid March of the previous marketing year, since this will enable beet growers to adapt their sowings to the forecast balance sheet. Regulation (EC) No 320/2006 opens the possibility of renouncing quotas against payment of restructuring aid in two steps. The amounts that may be renounced in the second step cannot be taken into account for the fixing of the coefficient for the preventive withdrawal in respect of the marketing year 2008/2009 because the respective figures will only be known after 16 March 2008 which is the deadline for the fixing of the coefficient. It should therefore be clarified that that coefficient needs to be applied to the quotas still available at that moment.
(8) In order to take into account updated market data on production, provision should be made for the preventive withdrawal coefficient fixed in March to be adjusted if necessary for the marketing year concerned.
(9) Article 19(3) of Regulation (EC) No 318/2006 provides that withdrawn quantities which are not marketed as industrial sugar or isoglucose are to be treated as the first quantities produced under quota for the following marketing year. This rule could mean that undertakings wishing to participate in the restructuring scheme in the 2008/2009 and 2009/2010 marketing years are prevented from benefiting fully from that scheme. In order to avoid hampering the restructuring of the sugar sector, it is considered necessary to provide for an exemption, at the request of the undertaking, from the withdrawal in the 2007/2008 marketing year or from a possible withdrawal in the 2008/2009 marketing year for those undertakings which in the marketing year of withdrawal concerned have successfully applied for restructuring aid under Regulation (EC) No 320/2006 and which as a result are going to renounce their total quota in the following marketing year.
(10) In order to encourage an increased participation in the restructuring scheme, it is considered appropriate to provide for an increase of the coefficient in relation to the total renunciation of quota per Member State under the restructuring scheme.
(11) Import licences under certain preferential arrangements are to be issued only to full-time refiners within the limit of the traditional supply need provided for in Article 29 of Regulation (EC) No 318/2006. This prerogative should not be reduced in relation to the application of a withdrawal, considering that refiners do not have the same possibility as sugar producers to adapt their production to the withdrawal thresholds.
(12) Article 6 of Regulation (EC) No 318/2006 lays down rules applicable to interprofessional agreements. In accordance with paragraph 6 of that Article, agreements within the trade may derogate from some of these rules. The possibility of derogating from the obligation for sugar undertakings which have not signed pre-sowing contracts for a quantity equivalent to their quota sugar to pay the minimum price for all beet processed into sugar should be provided for, as was the case until the application of Regulation (EC) No 318/2006.
(13) Article 10(1) of Regulation (EC) No 318/2006 provides for a yearly adjustment of the national and regional quotas set out in Annex III to that Regulation, as a result of the application of different mechanisms through which the quotas allocated to individual undertakings are either increased or reduced. Article 10(1) of Regulation (EC) No 318/2006 also refers to Articles 14 and 19 of that Regulation, which concern respectively the carry forward of surplus sugar and the withdrawal of sugar from the market. However, the application of those Articles does not result in either an increase or a reduction of quota. The reference in question should therefore be deleted.
(14) Regulation (EC) No 318/2006 should therefore be amended accordingly.
(15) Account should be taken in this Regulation of the fact that the total quota for production of inulin syrup was renounced in the 2006/2007 marketing year under the restructuring scheme established by Regulation (EC) No 320/2006,