This week, the European Committee of Sugar Manufacturers (CEPS) and the European Federation of Trade Unions in the Food, Agriculture and Tourism sectors (EFFAT) complained that the situation is increasingly tight for European producers.

The two organizations say the European sugar segment is plunged into an unprecedented crisis since the end of the commodity's production quotas in October 2017. As a result, many plants have been closed with the "severe" measures adopted to drastically reduce administrative costs.

After almost 50 years of existence, the elimination of production quotas and guaranteed prices for producers means that there are no longer any limits for the block to produce and export sugar – what is supposedly no longer subsidized.

However, the two organizations claim that the world price of sugar, well below the European guaranteed price under the previous regime, is not "sustainable" – especially because it is influenced by subsidies that India grants to its producers, and it does not reflect the average cost of production either.

The sugar segment also says that a recent study on the accumulated effects of trade concessions made by the EU to third countries confirms the sector's sensitivity to external competition.

CEFS and EFFAT are therefore calling on the European authorities to back away from the concessions made in the sugar and ethanol segments by the EU-Mercosur agreement. The organizations also want to exclude sugar from all future agreements under negotiation (Australia and Thailand are among them) and negotiate strict rules of origin instead.

Rejecting the concessions already made by the EU would practically dismantle the EU-Mercosur agreement. Sugar producers did not achieve this during the negotiations, and it is unlikely they will now.