Projet de loi portant assentiment à l'Accord international de 1994 sur le café, fait à Londres le 30 mars 1994.
General information ¶
- Submitted by
-
The Senate
- Submission date
- March 20, 2000
- Official page
- Visit
- Status
- Adopted
- Requirement
- Simple
- Subjects
- international agreement coffee
Voting ¶
- Voted to adopt
- Groen CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP Open Vld N-VA MR FN VB
Contact form ¶
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Discussion ¶
May 10, 2000 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)
Full source
Leen Laenens Groen ⚙
Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, colleagues, Agalev and Ecolo regret the lack of economic clauses or price mechanisms in the current national coffee agreement, despite this agreement. I would like to highlight that many developing countries are heavily dependent on coffee as an export product. Any price drop has an immediate impact on the lives of millions of small farmers who account for 10% of the total coffee production. The 1994 International Coffee Agreement is a flawed decousment of the four previous international Coffee Agreements, which were concluded between 1963 and 1989. They regulated the coffee price on the basis of fixed export quotas. No clauses have been included since the conclusion of the last agreement in 1989. The consequences were dramatic for the Third World due to the emergence of price drops, price fluctuations and the associated speculation. We therefore advocate the reintroduction of such clauses in the negotiations within the International Coffee Organization, the ICO. Today, three negotiating sessions have already taken place, where there has not yet been a price stabilization. We will continue to advocate the inclusion of an economic clause. I will not fail to ask the government about this. In this way, together with the European Union, Belgium can play a pioneering role within the ICO and take the initiative to allow consuming countries to contribute to the financing of buffer stocks as well. These buffer stocks are important for negotiating a price regulation if an economic clause would not be feasible.