BRUSSELS, Nov 28: The European Union has suspended its regular subsidy awards for sugar exports to the 10 mostly ex-communist countries that are due to become full EU members from next May, member state officials said on Friday.

The move is part of the transitional arrangements that are designed to help bring the farming sectors of the accession countries into line with EU standards — once the 10 states join the bloc and integrate into its single internal market.

“This was always going to happen at some point as it’s happened in every other (farming) sector,” one official said.

Export subsidies will no longer be awarded to traders sending sugar into these countries under the EU’s regular tender, currently held every two weeks. The same applies to syrups and “periodics”, or small amounts of raw and white sugar.

The decision was taken at Thursday’s meeting of the EU’s sugar management committee, bringing together representatives of the EU’s national sugar authorities and the European Commission.

“There was a vote on three regulations, which suspend export refunds under the main sugar tender, the periodics and syrups, on exports to the 10 new member states,” the official said.

“The periodics and syrups apply from today and the one on the main tender will come into force shortly. It will be in place for the next tender in two weeks’ time.”

The management committee is also finalizing its discussion on plans to monitor sugar stocks in the accession states and is likely to vote on the Commission’s proposals at its next meeting scheduled for December 11.

The idea is to avoid a situation where traders circumvent higher EU tariffs by importing and storing commodities such as sugar in accession states before May 1, 2004 and then selling them onto the EU market once the bloc expands to 25 members.—Reuters