Ross Sheil, Staff Reporter
LOCAL SUGAR officials will be protesting outside the gates of the British High Commission in Kingston tomorrow against a plan by the European Union (EU) to cut the price of sugar from the Caribbean by 39 per cent.
The EU's announcement is expected on June 22.
According to Professor Trevor Munroe, president of the University and Allied Workers Union (UAWU), the protest will start at noon tomorrow and will include delegates of the three unions representing employees in the sugar industry. The other two unions are the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union and the National Workers Union. The unions staged a similar protest last summer.
A delegation from the demonstrators will meet with British High Commissioner Peter Mathers and head of the European Commission delegation in Jamaica, Gerd Jarchow, Munroe disclosed.
COINCIDES WITH EU SUMMIT
The protest coincides with a meeting of the heads of the local EU member missions at the British High Commission.
Today is also when the EU's annual summit is to be held in Luxembourg, presided over by British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
The current situation follows last year's ruling by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) that EU sugar exports are subsidised beyond levels accepted by the WTO. This sugar includes the 1.6 million tonnes imported annually at high prices from African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) producers. As a result, the EU announced it would abandon the 1975 Sugar Protocol signed with ACP countries guaranteeing them price and quantities of exports for an indefinite period.
ACP countries and the Jamaican sugar industry have argued against the cuts and the timing, which they said is too sudden, and threatens the industry's future.
More time is needed they argue, to adapt to modern market conditions and move into refining, ethanol production and energy co-generation.
