Agroaldea
The Franco-Spanish-Italian contact group of the sector believes that the agreements are being breached.
The French-Spanish-Italian tomato contact group, composed of representatives of French producers, Spain and Italy, among them the Spanish Federation of Associations of Fruit Producers and Exporters, Vegetables, Flowers and Live Plants, FEPEX, as well as by those responsible for the respective administrations, has analyzed the strong growth of tomato imports from Morocco in more than a 50% since the beginning of this campaign in relation to the previous one, at a meeting held in Brussels.
French producers, Spain and Italy analyzed with concern the behavior of community imports of tomatoes from Morocco with a growth of 66% in October of this year in relation to the same month of the last campaign, according to data from the Saint Charles market, in France, main entry point to the EU for Moroccan tomatoes.
This strong growth has continued in the month of November with a 55% more in relation to November 2013.
The contact group considers that this disorderly behavior of Moroccan exports will cause serious disturbances in the community market and consequently heavy losses for producers in the three countries..
The group considers, as well, that the concessions made in the Association Agreement between the EU and Morocco in the tomato sector, and as stated literally in the article 4, aim to maintain traditional Moroccan exports to the EU and avoid market disruptions, what is not being fulfilled, considering the strong growth of more than 50% found in this campaign.
For this reason, has agreed to request the European Commission to apply the safeguard measures provided for in the Association Agreement and to modify the method of calculating the import value of tomatoes from Morocco.
The new method, launched by the European Commission in this campaign, is causing a loss of efficiency both in monitoring markets and in protecting the community market against disorderly imports.
At the meeting, The prospects for the current tomato campaign were also analyzed., confirming stability in the surfaces and production of the three countries.
The French-Spanish-Italian tomato contact group is made up of representatives of French tomato producers, Spain and Italy, as well as those responsible for the respective administrations. It is one of the working groups established within the framework of the Joint Committee on Fruits and Vegetables.
On behalf of FEPEX they intervened in yesterday's meeting, the president of FEPEX and president of FEXPHAL (Alicante), Jorge Brotons, the president of the FEPEX Tomato Committee and representative of Proexport (Murcia), Jose Hernandez, the manager of Coexphal (Almería), Juan Colomina and the director of FEPEX, Jose Maria Pozancos.