PORTUGUESE GRAIN AGENCY BAN OPPOSED BY MINISTER

  Portugal's Agriculture Minister Alvaro
  Barreto said he disagreed with a court order barring the state
  grain buying agency EPAC from taking part in cereals import
  tenders open to private traders.
      Barreto told reporters his aim was to have EPAC readmitted
  to the tenders.
      Under the terms of Portugal's January 1986 accession to the
  European Community (EC), a grain import monopoly held by EPAC
  (Empresa Publica de Abastecimento de Cereais) is being reduced
  by 20 pct annually until all imports are liberalised in 1990.
      Following legal proceedings by private importers, Lisbon's
  civil court decided in a preliminary ruling earlier this month
  that EPAC should not be allowed to take part, as it had done,
  in tenders for the liberalised share of annual grain imports.
      As a result of this ruling, EPAC was excluded from a March
  12 tender for the import of 80,000 tonnes of maize.
      Barreto said, "My objective is put EPAC into the tenders
  because it has a right to take part." He added the government
  would be studying the court order to see whether or not the
  ruling could stop EPAC from participating in future tenders.
      Barreto said there was no reason to exclude any operator,
  whether public or private, from the tenders. Private traders
  had argued that EPAC, given its dominant position in the
  Portuguese grain market, had an unfair advantage over them.
      "There is no reason to make EPAC a martyr of the system,"
  Barreto said. He said the EC's executive commission had
  accepted the government's view that EPAC should be eligible.
      The Lisbon court ruling stated that EPAC's participation in
  the public tenders was unfair competition and violated the
  clauses of Portugal's EC accession treaty dealing with the
  gradual dismantling of the state agency's import monopoly.
  

