Rice, the EU does not change the threshold for zero tariffs imports. Producers: 4 billion damage
The Europarliament has definitively approved the regulation on tariff concessions for Least Developed Countries (the so-called Generalised System of Preferences) for the next ten years while leaving the 'phantom' clause on rice imports unchanged.
Not even the last desperate joint appeal of the Italian industry was successful. The Europarliament has definitively approved the regulation on tariff concessions for the least developed countries (the so-called Generalised System of Preferences) for the next ten years while leaving the 'phantom' clause on rice imports unchanged.
The vertiginous growth of foreign arrivals at very low costs even of already processed and packaged products will in fact be able to continue undisturbed, with good peace for the excellence of the Made in Italy agro-industrial sector. The safeguard clause contained in the broad system of concessions conceived by Europe as support for the growth of poorer countries, provides for the reinstatement of tariffs only in the case of an increase in imports of more than 45% compared to the (already very high) average of the last ten years. According to the organisations' calculations, more than 562,000 tonnes per year at zero tariffs against a considered sustainable quantity of 200,000.
An attempt by an amendment in extremis tabled by MEP Carlo Fidanza (and supported by a long list of MEPs) to reduce the increase in the threshold above which European market protection is triggered to at least 20% was to no avail. A blitz that risked blowing up the entire Spg dossier, which has been dragging on for years with an unfortunately highly negative outcome for the rice sector: there are too few producer countries (eight, with Italia alone accounting for more than 50%) to move European sensitivity on the issue.
According to Copa-Cogeca the confirmation of the 'phantom clause' puts at risk 100 thousand hectares of Indica-type rice in Europe at an estimated cost of 4 billion, against an estimated benefit of just 18 million for producers in the countries benefiting from the agreement. These include Cambodia and Myanmar, major producers and exporters to the EU with more than 500 thousand tonnes, which have more than doubled in the last decade and come to cover almost a third of total imports of 1.6 million tonnes (out of a consumption of 2.6), increasingly made up of ready-packed rice at unsustainable prices by European standards.
"The EU Parliament has agreed to confirm unilateral concessions to two dictatorships," says the president of Ferm, the European rice industry association, Riccardo Preve. The new regulation, explains the director of Airi, the association of the national industry, Pietro Milani, therefore envisages an automatic safeguard for rice which, starting from 2027, will be activated when about 313 thousand tonnes of imports from Cambodia and 249 thousand tonnes from Myanmar are reached, for an overall threshold of about 562 thousand tonnes, above the highest historical volumes recorded. A paradox that makes the reintroduction of tariffs on milled rice of 175 euro per tonne inapplicable unless a slice of Italian and European production is cancelled. "A result," Milani points out, "that is far removed from the requests of the supply chain, which during negotiations had urged the EU institutions to provide for the automatic reintroduction of tariffs when a threshold considered more appropriate to protect domestic production, at around 200 thousand tonnes, is reached.
