Coughlan chases issue of €25m sugar levy

By Paul Mooney

Minister for Agriculture Mary Coughlan was this week still pursuing the possibility that a beet crop could be grown in 2006 without suffering a €25 million levy for the planned EU sugar restructuring scheme. The issue will come down to definitions that will only be fully spelled out in the EU legal texts that will govern the restructuring scheme.

Coughlan explained to the Dail on Tuesday night that the question was whether a processor such as Irish Sugar would have to pay levy "in the year it renounces the quota''. She indicated that this question had been asked during the political discussions leading up to the deal reforming the sugar regime and that the answer had been 'no', ie that the processors wouldn't have to pay a levy in the year in which it renounces quota.

She acknowledged that she could not be definitive on this until she had received the legal texts which are still being drafted in Brussels.

"The implication of that [the answer to the question] must be finalised in the legal texts,'' she said. "Political agreement will be reached in February. Unfortunately, I cannot give a definitive reply on these issues until 20 and 21 February.'' She was replying to a Fine Gael motion of no confidence in her position.

Meanwhile, Coughlan has succeeded in getting rid of the requirement that growers must deliver beet in the year before take up of the restructuring scheme in order to qualify for restructuring funding. That has now been removed from the latest draft of the legal text.

Instead, member states are being given discretion to determine the period in question. A spokesman said the Minister was confident this would remain the position.