The sugar industry in Cambodia and the Everything But Arms initiative

20.3.2014

Question for written answer P-003385-14
to the Commission
Rule 117
Patrice Tirolien (S&D)

The United Nations ranks Cambodia among the 48 least developed countries in the world. As such, Cambodian goods enjoy zero import duty status on the EU market, via the Everything But Arms initiative. These trade arrangements have given a major boost to the country’s agriculture industry, not least through the rapid expansion of the sugar industry, which has been stimulated by the advantageous tariff conditions the EU offers on sugar, as this has been completely exempt from quotas and customs tariffs since 2009. In 2012, over 100 000 hectares of land were granted to sugar producing companies. Between 2010 and 2013, exports of sugar from Cambodia to Europe rose from 10 000 tonnes to 64 917 tonnes.

As has been demonstrated time and again by local communities, civil society and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia, it would appear that this rapid growth is being achieved at the expense of serious human rights violations and considerable damage to the environment and to health (forced expropriations, child labour, restriction of access to natural resources and wholesale deforestation, including in protected areas, etc.).

Article 19(6) of Regulation (EU) No 978/2012 of the European Parliament and the Council states that the Commission ‘shall seek all information it considers necessary, inter alia, the available assessments, comments, decisions, recommendations and conclusions of the relevant monitoring bodies, as appropriate’ when considering whether to temporarily withdraw tariff preferences.

In the light of the reports of 16 July and 24 September 2012 by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia, the European Parliament resolutions of 26 October 2012 and 16 January 2014 on the situation in Cambodia and the many initiatives taken by civil society, can the Commission state whether it has launched a consultation process to investigate the growing number of human rights violations in Cambodia arising from the granting of land concessions for agro‐industrial development linked to the export of agricultural goods to the European Union?

OJ C 341, 30/09/2014