Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-04-23-Speech-1-215"
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"en.20070423.22.1-215"2
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".
Mr President, this is the second debate in the House this term on the issue of potato starch production quotas. The matter was debated previously in May 2005. Unfortunately, little progress has been made during these last two years with regard to increasing the potato starch production quotas for two new Member States, Poland and Lithuania. Despite the European Commission’s statement in 2005 that the quotas would be checked and requests for increasing the quotas allocated to those countries considered, nothing has been achieved in that regard.
I shall therefore repeat what I said in my statement two years ago, namely that the potato starch production quotas allocated by the Commission are not in line with the production capacities of Polish and Lithuanian plants, their supply of raw material and the increasing demand for starch.
Concern has been expressed that increasing production quotas amounts to opening Pandora’s box, so that if Poland and Lithuania’s quotas were increased this would lead to similar requests by the remaining Member States regarding other agricultural products. It is important, however, to bear in mind the fact that the market for starch products is constantly developing, and that demand for these products is rising. In addition, it has been noted that ever since Poland joined the European Union imports of starch and starch products have been steadily increasing. There has been a notable worsening of the trade deficit for starch, and this is due precisely to the restrictions on production.
The European Commission’s stance is that the World Trade Organisation negotiations are likely to lead to a reduction in the level of export refunds and a reduction of tariff protection for the import of tapioca starch, thus increasing the availability of starch on the Community market. The Commission has not taken into account, however, that during the period when the quotas apply, that is to say for the next two marketing years, there is practically no chance of any of the provisions of a future agreement on agriculture within the World Trade Organisation being implemented. The impact of multilateral agreements on the supply of imported starch on the Community market will therefore be negligible. I trust Members of this House will endorse Mr Wojciechowski’s report and that the European Commission will grant the requests made by the governments of Poland and Lithuania to increase their quotas."@en1
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