The European Union's present trade arrangements with the Western Balkan countries of Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Albania and Serbia-Montenegro, which allow unrestricted duty-free access to the European sugar market, have resulted in a substantial increase in European sugar imports, the Commission said in a statement on Tuesday.
Since 1999, when they were nearly zero, sugar exports from those countries to the EU increased to 27,000 tonnes in 2003.
Croatia and Macedonia have signed bilateral agreements with the EU so that quotas for them will be established by negotiation, while for the remaining countries the European Commission may set quotas independently because the EU trades with them on the basis of unilateral decisions.