Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-06-18-Speech-1-125"
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"en.20070618.15.1-125"2
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"Mr President, since a lot has been said about whisky and vodka, I shall say something about rum, which is produced in only two places within the European Union, those being the French overseas
and Madeira. Since a great deal of it is drunk throughout Europe, it is imported from numerous third countries, primarily from ACP countries which enjoy special treatment under the 2000 Cotonou Agreement.
Rum is one of the overseas
’ main export products, and the sugar cane rum industry alone accounts for over 40% of the value of exports from Guadeloupe, Martinique and Réunion, and for 40 000 jobs created there.
Where the Community’s definition of rum is concerned, then, a great deal is at stake; rum from the French overseas territories needs to be defined in a way that makes it possible for it to be better distinguished from its third-country competitors, specifically by describing it as ‘agricultural rum’ derived exclusively from sugar cane juice, something that consumers recognise as a sign of quality.
It is no less important, in the eyes of the ACP countries, that this definition be consistent with the EU’s overall approach to their rum industry if their growth is to be sustained and if the progress made to date by the Caribbean producers is not to be jeopardised. It was with this in mind that the professional bodies representing producers in the French overseas
and in the Caribbean countries agreed, in October 2006, at La Barbade, on a common position on the Community definition of rum, taking as the basis for it a generic definition and going on to draw progressive distinctions between traditional rum, agricultural rum and rum refined from sugar.
I would like to thank Mr Schnellhardt for taking on board my request for an adequate definition of agricultural rum and for finally deciding to include in his report the definition of it already to be found in the Council’s compromise text. It has been a considerable amount of work, over a long period of time, on the part of the whole industry that has made it possible to promote the production of agricultural rum, so that the denomination, today, is one of the principal guarantors of this French overseas product’s entry onto commercial markets, and it is this that makes it possible to hope that the compromise submitted today for this House’s approval will be adopted at first reading."@en1
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