Win-Win for the EU, Lose-Lose for Australia
The European Union floods Australia with tariff-free bacon but plans to hand a big portion of Australia’s tariff-free high quality beef EU access to the United States of America
The European Union floods Australia with tariff-free bacon but plans to hand a big portion of Australia’s tariff-free high quality beef EU access to the United States of America
In a shock announcement on the 3rd of
September this year that has been largely un-reported in Australian media, the
European Union Agriculture Commissioner, Mr Phil Hogan, advised that the
Commission is recommending that the EU Council should effectively transfer a
huge slice of Australia’s highly lucrative tariff-free 481 grain fed beef quota
access to the United States of America.
This announcement has been made despite
representations made by both the EU and the US to the WTO Dispute Settlement
Body in 2009 that the tariff-free 481 EU Beef Quota would not be country of
origin discriminatory. In short, Commissioner Hogan has recommended that the EU
mandate a vote to increase the US quota to 35,000 tonnes, leaving only 10,000
tonnes of the 45,000 tonne 481 EU Beef Quota to be shared amongst 4 countries.
The European Union 481 Beef Quota is the only
tariff-free quota available to Australian beef producers and Australia has been
the major supplier to this quota since 2010, supplying some 17,000 tonnes of
the 45,000 tonne quota.
Australian industry participants in this EU beef trade
say that a reduction of this size to Australian access would render the
remaining beef quota access to the EU largely unusable...
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