While the debate on the budget law continues, Brussels agrees with Italy on another issue: that of rice. The story concerns imports of the "Indica" variety (also known as "Patna") from Cambodia and Myanmar, into which the European Commission had opened an investigation on 16 February following a request presented by our country through the ministries of Economic Development and Agricultural Policies.
In its conclusions, released on Tuesday, the EU executive proposes "the application of a safeguard clause to protect Italian and European rice growers and industries which provides for the reintroduction of duties on imports from Cambodia and Myanmar for a period of three years ”, reads a note from the Mise.
"Currently imports are duty-free since these are two less advanced countries - explains the ministry - The Commission proposes to apply on imports of rice 'indica' the duty of the normal customs tariff, equal to 175 €/ton, for the first year and to a lesser extent for the second (€150/ton) and third year (€125/ton)”.
The European Commission will bring the proposal to the opinion of the Member States within the Generalized System of Preferences Committee, which was convened in Brussels next December. In the event of a green light, the safeguard clause could become operational as early as the first months of 2019.
Coldiretti rejoices: "The Commission has recognized the economic damage due to the volumes of imports of Indica rice and also admits that significant human rights violations have occurred in Cambodia in relation to land grabbing - reads a note from the Association – Between September 2017 and July 2018, European imports of rice from Burma increased by 66%. The crisis is dramatic and threatens the national supremacy in Europe, where Italy is the leading producer of rice with 1,50 million tons on an area cultivated by about 4 companies of 234.300 hectares, which covers about 50% of the entire EU production with a completely unique variety range”.
Confagricoltura was also satisfied, recalling that Italy is the main rice producing country in the European Union and for some years has been suffering the consequences of a massive increase in imports, in particular those from Asia with specific reference to Myanmar and Cambodia .
