No L 110/20 Official Journal of the European Communities 29. 4. 88 e COUNCIL REGULATION (EEC) No 1107/88 of 25 April 1988 amending Regulation (EEC) No 1785/81 on the common organization of the markets in the sugar sector THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES, Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community, and in particular Article 43 thereof, Having regard to the proposal from the Commission, Having regard to the opinion of the European Parliament (1), Having regard to the opinion of the Economic and Social Committee (2), Whereas, according to Council Regulation (EEC) No 1785/81 of 30 June 1981 on the common organization of the markets in the sugar sector (3) as last amended by Regulation (EEC) No 3993/87 (%), certain sugars containing added substances other than colouring and flavoured agents must be treated as raw sugars; whereas, because of their very nature, sugars containing those added substances should not be treated differently from flavoured or coloured sugars; whereas, moreover, to avoid customs difficulties when such products are traded and so ensure better administration of the customs nomenclature, sugars containing the added substances in question should, for these purposes, be treated as flavoured or coloured sugars; Whereas the processing of sugar cane in Spain is, in volume terms, a marginal industry which, before that State’s accession to the Community, survived thanks to related activities dependent on the State-trading arrangements for ~ importing molasses and distillates used in the manufacture of rum; whereas those related activities had to cease because of accession; whereas, until crops to replace sugar cane can be grown in the areas where it is currently produced, certain adjustments should be provided for; whereas the quantities of sugar involved are not very large and, since they are marketed very swiftly, tend not to remain in storage; whereas the compensation system for storage costs should, accordingly, be applied progressively to this sugar from the 1988/89 marketing year until the end of the period covered by the system for the alignment of sugar prices which is provided for in the Treaty of the Accession of Spain to the Community; Whereas the growing of sugar beet and the sugar beet processing industry are of great social and economic (*) O] No C 49,-22. 2. 1988, p. 100. (2) OJ No C 356, 31.12. 1987, p. 42. (3) OJNo L 177,1.7.1981, p. 4. (*) O] No L 377, 31.12. 1987, p. 24. importance to the autonomous region of the Azores; whereas the intervention price for white sugar for Portugal applies to both mainland Portugal and the autonomous region of the Azores; whereas, however, this price, which is determined according to rules agreed during the accession negotiations, was initially calculated with reference to the average of the ex-factory prices for mainland refineries and to the derived intervention price for white sugar in the United Kingdom, on which price it must be aligned at the end of a transitional period of seven years following accession; whereas the intervention price for white sugar in Portugal was thus determined; whereas the intervention price for white sugar in Portugal was thus determined on the basis of the refining costs of efficient undertakings refining large volumes of raw sugar, costs which are not comparable with those of a small undertaking producing relatively minor quantities of beet sugar; whereas, moreover, the basic price for sugar beet in the Azores is higher than that for the United Kingdom, because of the beet’s low technical yield and the production problems arising from excessive fragmentation of the production plots and insufficient mechanization; whereas, accordingly, there are grounds for providing for Community measures to enable the sugar beet processing industry in the Azores to make adjustments over a certain period, until the expiry of the price-alignment system provided for in the Treaty of Accession to the Community; whereas the most suitable step would be to grant, as an intervention measure during that period, Community aid in respect of the difference between the derived intervention price for white sugar for the United Kingdom and the intervention price for white sugar for Portugal, so as to give economic support to the Portuguese processing industry as the latter price moves in stages towards the derived intervention price for the United Kingdom and is aligned on that price at the end of that period; Whereas the common organization of the markets in the sugar sector has, since the 1981/82 marketing year, been based on the principle that producers should be financially liable for all the losses resulting from the disposal of the Community’s surplus production in relation to internal consumption under a system of price and marketing guaranteed differentiated according to the production quotas allocated to each undertaking; whereas it was decided to apply that principle and that system for a further five marketing years from 1986/87 to 1990/91 in order to curb production in the Community, where there is considerable technical production capacity while the world market for sugar is characterized by constant overproduction in relation to consumption and hence by ever-increasing surplus stocks and low prices; whereas, however, the basic A and B quantities and the A and B quotas for undertakings producing sugar and isoglucose were fixed only for the first two marketing years 1986/87 and 1987/88 in view in