The proposed European Community regulations on rough diamond imports and exports contain provisions the industry can never accept. Under the new rules old inventories may become "conflict inventories" by default.

Eventually, the establishment of a "single diamond market" may not only affect rough diamonds, but also polished (leading to a possible loss of the Value Added Tax exemption in Belgium). Any European government having a position on the regulations has only a few days to communicate these to their national representatives on the so-called "133 Committee" which will meet in the third week of September 2002 to consider the proposals.

The Committee has been named after Article 133 of the European Community (EC) Treaty, which established the EC, and it has the power to negotiate on international trade matters on the basis of directives approved by the EU Council of Ministers.

The Committee will consider the Proposed Council Regulation for the European implementation of the Kimberley certification regime in-depth and then make its recommendation (probably in mid October) to the EC, which most likely will adopt the Committee's approved text with no further alterations.

So, any diamantaire not happy with all of the proposed rules has only a rather limited time-window to communicate their position to the relevant national 133 Committee member. For those who want to act - the time is now.