EU seeks cereals imports to ease tight supplies
Friday, 28 September 2007
BRUSSELS, Sept 27 (AFP): The European Union, traditionally one of the world's main breadbaskets, sought yesterday to boost grain imports as soaring demand and prices crimp global supplies.
With global cereals supplies increasingly strained, EU Agriculture Minister Mariann Fischer Boel said she would propose "in the coming days" a suspension of import duties, which currently run at less than 10 per cent.
Warning that the cereals market was getting increasingly tight, Fischer Boel told farm ministers meeting in Brussels the situation "requires increased imports to meet our domestic demand."
But even without the suspension, Fischer Boel said the EU had "moved from its traditional position of net exporter to to a net importer" due to the strained supply.
Fischer-Boel acknowledged that the suspension would not "make a huge difference," but "in a situation where we have high prices it doesn't fit into the system to have import duties."
The suspension, which would have to be approved by EU member states, would run until the end of the current marketing year ending June 30 2008.
While most countries at the meeting were open to the idea, France voiced concern that it would be difficult to reinstate the duties and that it could let in unwanted genetically modified products.
With global cereals supplies increasingly strained, EU Agriculture Minister Mariann Fischer Boel said she would propose "in the coming days" a suspension of import duties, which currently run at less than 10 per cent.
Warning that the cereals market was getting increasingly tight, Fischer Boel told farm ministers meeting in Brussels the situation "requires increased imports to meet our domestic demand."
But even without the suspension, Fischer Boel said the EU had "moved from its traditional position of net exporter to to a net importer" due to the strained supply.
Fischer-Boel acknowledged that the suspension would not "make a huge difference," but "in a situation where we have high prices it doesn't fit into the system to have import duties."
The suspension, which would have to be approved by EU member states, would run until the end of the current marketing year ending June 30 2008.
While most countries at the meeting were open to the idea, France voiced concern that it would be difficult to reinstate the duties and that it could let in unwanted genetically modified products.