Summary
The EC has announced the launch of separate FTA negotiations with Australia and New Zealand. This will need to involve negotiations in sensitive agricultural sectors. How the EU prepares its TRQ offers to Australia and New Zealand in sensitive agricultural products could provide insights into how it plans to deal with the Brexit related apportionment of bilaterally negotiated TRQ access in areas of direct export interest ACP countries (e.g. bananas, sugar and rice). Read more “EU to Launch FTA Negotiations with Australia and New Zealand”
Category: EU trade policy
EU Moves to Restrict Poultry Imports from Brazil on SPS Grounds in Context of Challenges to Meat Sector Concessions in EU-Mercosur Negotiations
Summary
The EC has de-listed 20 Brazilian meat and poultry processing plants, effectively halting imports into the EU from the affected meat company facilities. The Brazilian government has described the EC’s action as constituting ‘a trade war’ and see’s the EC’s action as a response to EU producer pressure to restrict the tariff rate quota for import of beef in the context of the EU-Mercosur negotiations. The Brazilian government is planning to appeal against the EC’s action in the WTO. The current developments in the Brazilian-EU meat sector trade highlight the importance of food safety and SPS issues in exporting to the EU. Given the challenges facing ACP exporters in consistently complying with evolving EU SPS and food safety standards it would appear enhanced structure for dialogue around these issues are required to ensure that in protecting plant, animal and human health in the EU, food safety and SPS controls are applied in a minimally trade disruptive manner. Read more “EU Moves to Restrict Poultry Imports from Brazil on SPS Grounds in Context of Challenges to Meat Sector Concessions in EU-Mercosur Negotiations”
EC Asserts EUs TRQ approach to Mercosur Beef Access Request Protects Sensitive Sectors
Summary
The debate on the EU’s TRQ offer for beef in the EU-Mercusor negotiations throws into sharp relief the double standards which the EU applies to the use of quantitative restrictions on trade in sensitive agricultural products. While routinely using such tools to protect EU producers in trade arrangements with competitive agricultural exporters, the EU insists on a prohibition on the use of quantitative restriction on imports from the EU under trade arrangements with ACP countries. This is despite the EU often being the major source of agricultural imports in sensitive sectors in EPA signatory countries.
It also raises the potentially important issue of the effects of Brexit in the beef sector both in terms of the threat to the functioning of national and regional beef markets in the ACP (particularly in Africa) and the future value of preferential access to EU27 markets in the post-Brexit context. This will require ACP beef exporters to the EU to pay close attention to the prospects for a ‘hard’ Brexit in the meat sector as EU27/UK negotiation progress throughout the course of 2018. Read more “EC Asserts EUs TRQ approach to Mercosur Beef Access Request Protects Sensitive Sectors”
UNCTAD Analysis Highlights High Rate of Utilisation of Tariff Preferences Under EU Trade Agreements
Summary
The UNCTAD report highlights how the EU is ‘one of the most active negotiators of FTAs at the global level’. These EU trade agreements grant ‘EU companies more favourable trade conditions – including through reduced tariffs’, with these preferences providing a competitive advantage to EU exporters compared to companies in countries not benefitting from such FTA arrangements. While the report reviews the utilisation of tariff preferences under EU trade agreements with non-ACP countries it does provide insights into the commercial value of EU reciprocal preferential trade agreements. It also provides important background to the debate on future implementation of the concluded EU-ACP economic partnership agreements. Read more “UNCTAD Analysis Highlights High Rate of Utilisation of Tariff Preferences Under EU Trade Agreements”
Canadian dairy TRQ administration replicates earlier EC practices to consternation of EU Exporters
Summary
EU dairy exporters have complained Canada’s system for the allocation of the CETA cheese TRQ unfairly favours local manufacturers. The EU makes use of similar yet even more severe arrangements for TRQ administration in sensitive sectors, with under the EU-South Africa TDCA import licences being allocated only to ‘approved undertakings’ (EU dairy companies) on food safety grounds. Important lessons in regard to how to ensure TRQ regulated imports under recently concluded EPAs do not undermine local producers can be learned from EU practices with regard to TRQ administration. These lessons could prove useful in ensuring that expanded imports from the EU in sensitive sectors do not undermine local agro-food sector development. Read more “Canadian dairy TRQ administration replicates earlier EC practices to consternation of EU Exporters”
Report highlights vulnerability of EU poultry sector to liberalisation of trade in poultry meat
Summary
A January 2017 report on the relative competitiveness of the EU poultry sector highlights the importance of continued tariff protection and managed trade (using TRQ access) to the future of the EU poultry sector. This EU policy practice contrasts markedly with EU policy advocacy in its dealings with ACP countries. Without trade protection competitive third country poultry producers would gain a strongly competitive position in the EU market, exporting far higher volumes of poultry meat to the EU. However, EU tariff protection cannot be justified on the basis of higher EU standards, which are small relative to the differences in price competitiveness between EU and major third country poultry exporters. Read more “Report highlights vulnerability of EU poultry sector to liberalisation of trade in poultry meat”
Agriculture to be a Focus of the Renewed Africa-EU Partnership
Summary
Supporting African agro-food sector development given its employment, food security and rural development effects is nominally a focus of the proposed renewed Africa-EU partnership. However differences of opinion over what constitutes an appropriate ‘regulatory and policy framework’ for African agro-food sector development, alongside unacknowledged tensions between EU agro-food sector export objectives and African agro-food sector development aspirations, could pose serious challenges for a renewed Africa-EU partnership in this area. Read more “Agriculture to be a Focus of the Renewed Africa-EU Partnership”
Record EU agri food surplus highlights success of EU CAP reforms
Summary
EU agro-food exports continue to grow to new record levels driven by successful agricultural reforms and an increasingly ‘offensive’ trade policy. For certain EU products sub-Saharan African markets have become increasingly important. In the coming years ACP governments will come under increased pressure to systematically remove all non-tariff barriers to EU agri-food exports. The EU largely imports unprocessed agricultural products from ACP countries, adds value meets domestic demand and re-exports higher value products to global markets. There is a fundamental in fundamental contradiction between the aspirations of ACP governments to structurally transform their agri-food sectors and EU objectives for expanding exports of value added food products. Read more “Record EU agri food surplus highlights success of EU CAP reforms”
Ecuador agreement highlights trade tools used by EU in sensitive sectors
Summary:
The debate on the ‘stabilisation mechanism’ in trade with Ecuador, is illustrative of the EU’s use of special trade mechanism to defend EU agricultural interests (e.g. EU banana producers). This type of mechanism could be useful for ACP governments under EPAs in sectors where EU agricultural and trade policies distort competition to the benefit of EU exporters (e.g. in the dairy and poultry sectors). Read more “Ecuador agreement highlights trade tools used by EU in sensitive sectors”
‘Do what we say, not what we do’
Study confirms importance of non-tariff trade measures to EU agriculture
Summary:
While an study of future trade agreements with the EU’s major agro-food sector trade partners validate the EU’s continued use of non-tariff trade policy measures to protect EU agriculture, EU EPAs are requiring ACP governments to abandon the ue of such policy tools. This raises important issues of EU policy coherence. Read more “‘Do what we say, not what we do’”