91999E0284

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0284/99

by Irini Lambraki (PSE) to the Commission

(17 February 1999)

Subject: Quotas for the Katerini variety of tobacco

The Commission's recent proposal for the guarantee thresholds for tobacco per Member State for the 1999-2001 harvests provides, for the first time, for a quota of the Katerini variety in Italy. The Commission's representative explained to Parliament's Committee on Agriculture that this was in response to a request from a private processing company which was conducting experiments in Italy with that particular variety.

Leaving aside the surprise at the Commission's immediate response to this request, will the Commission provide details about the above private processing company and its activities and all the data (location, duration, results) relating to its experimental crop-growing?

Answer given by Mr Fischler on behalf of the Commission

(17 March 1999)

In its report to the Council and Parliament on the common organisation of the market in raw tobacco(1), the Commission has stressed the need to boost the quotas for the best varieties to the detriment of those varieties that are hard to dispose of and have unacceptably low market prices. The third paragraph of point b4 of section V.A.3 of the Report proposes a reduction in the quota for group V (sun-cured tobacco) and transfer of the quantities thus released to other groups such as VI and VII, subject to observance of budget neutrality.

The Commission is able to inform the Honourable Member that the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EEC) 2075/92 and fixing the premiums and guarantee thresholds for leaf tobacco by variety group and Member State for the 1999, 2000 and 2001 harvests(2) applies this facet of the reform by transferring group V quota to group VII in Italy. Introductory trials of group VII varieties started in the Apulia production zone in 1997 and the results are being administered by the national bodies.

(1) COM(96) 554 final.

(2) OJ C 361, 24.11.1998.