The World Trade Organization arbitration panel has ruled that the European Union has until May 22, 2006, to reduce export subsidies on sugar, Australian Trade Minister Mark Vaile said Monday, writes the World Bank press review.
The ruling issued Friday in Geneva sets a legally binding timetable for the EU to limit its subsidized sugar exports to 1.273 million metric tons a year and cut its annual expenditure on sugar export subsidies by about 60 per cent to 499,1 million euro.
The deadline follows the WTO upholding April 28 a complaint by Brazil, Australia and Thailand that the EUs sugar subsidies were illegal. EU sugar exports were around 5 million metric tons in the last E.U. marketing year ended June 30, and are expected to be significantly more than that this year, following a declassification of 1,8 million metric tons, Vaile said.
Inter Press Service further notes that a US proposal to cut agriculture tariffs and subsidies and set new trade rules at the World Trade Organization (WTO) would do little to change the current system of global agriculture trade, according to an agricultural research and advocacy group.
The Minneapolis-based Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) said in a new analysis of the US proposal, floated on Oct. 10 in a bid to salvage the shaky global trade talks, that it ignores the most trade-distorting aspect of agricultural trade – “dumping.”
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
