A key issue in the talks on the fourth Lomé Convention is the demand of some Caribbean and Central American nations to join the ACP group, so as to benefit from the preferential treatment and financing facilities it enjoys. A specific concern is accession to the Sugar Protocol appended to the...

Sugar has always been a highly political and controversial commodity, but never more so than at the present time. The uneasy rivalry between cane and beet sugar, the products of tropical and temperate countries respectively, is giving way to open conflict.

For the last half century, the European sugar regime has remained largely unscathed by domestic Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reforms and this was no less the case when EU trade ministers met on 26 June 2003. However, in light of recent developments, the sugar regime currently in place, which...