The countries supplying under the Sugar Protocol have changed over time as some have lost
their exportable surplus whilst others have taken their place. There are currently eighteen
ACP states that export sugar to the EU under the Protocol: Barbados, Belize, Guyana,
Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, St Kitts and Nevis, Fiji, Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast,
Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and
Zimbabwe. Because quotas are set partly in relation to historic supplies, the distribution of
the gains is very uneven.
Special Preferential Sugar
Special Preferential Sugar (SPS) has been significant historically because it was the next
avenue created for imports (following the Iberian enlargement of the EU), but its importance
has been much reduced by the third route, Everything But Arms, which is described below.
SPS covers additional quotas made available to some Protocol signatories to supply an extra
quantity of sugar to feed the cane refining capacity in Portugal (currently around 220,000
tons). Conditions 1 and 2 are fulfilled with SPS just as much as with the Sugar Protocol.
Condition 3 has also applied to a substantial extent. But this is less because of the legal text
of the regime (which does not repeat the Protocol requirement that the price be linked to the
EU level) than a consequence of the characteristics of the trade and of the EU sugar regime.
In order to ensure ‘orderly marketing’ SPS suppliers have generally received a price that is
below the Protocol level but far higher than a ‘free market price’.
Everything but Arms (EBA)
The EBA regime of 2001 has introduced further diversity. Access to the EU sugar market is
now open to all least developed countries (LDCs) although as of 2003 only eight were
exporting to the EU under EBA, all but one of which (Nepal) are ACP states. Of these, four
(Madagascar, Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia) also have access under the Sugar Protocol.3
Unlimited free access is being phased in over the period to 2009/10, but the size of the tariff-
free quotas available during the transition period is comfortably sufficient for current LDC
exports.
EBA clearly fulfils condition 1; indeed, as the only import regime that will be unrestricted by
quota from 2009/10 it offers the greatest potential increase in demand for LDC exports. So
long as EU prices remain above ‘undistorted market levels’, condition 2 will also be met. So
far, the organisation of the EU sugar market has been such that condition 3 is also fulfilled in
the sense that the price paid to LDC exporters for EBA sugar is related to, though lower than,
Protocol levels. But this arrangement is not required by the EBA text. It has come about
because it is perceived to be in the mutual interest of the EU and LDCs during the current
period when the latter’s supplies are limited by a TQ. Council Reg 1381/2002, which lays
down that a minimum price should be fixed for EBA sugar, covers the period up to 2005/06
and the new sugar regime agreed in November 2005 (see below) will extend the price support
whilst the TQs are in operation.
It is not certain that this ‘export restraint’ will continue to be perceived as mutually
advantageous after it becomes ‘voluntary’ in 2009 or, even if it is so perceived, whether it
will be enforceable. From 2009/10, LDCs will have unlimited access (without any specific
national ‘allocations’). Unless new EU regulations are introduced regulating private sector
The other EBA suppliers were (in declining order of export value) Sudan, Burkina Faso and Ethiopia.