Tariffs & quotas

Committee:
Food & Agriculture
status:
Good progress
Published:
With the implementation of the EU-Japan EPA, and the removal or reduction of tariffs, EU products now have an improved market access. The EBC has big hopes that this will also translate to more European food products in the shopping bags of Japanese consumers. It is however important that these liberalisations are implemented without the use of stringent safeguard measures and that also TRQ administration is improved.

Recommendations

  • It is of utmost importance that the quota management system is predictable and easy to use.
  • The lottery system that “covers” some of the TRQ in case there is more demand than volume available creates problems due to low predictability. This is the situation for TRQ2 and cheese.
  • There needs to be a balance between allocation to historical importers and newcomers. This will lead to a maximisation of the usage.
  • TRQ11 should be re-defined so that drink related products (coffee and tea) and food related products (food preparations and dough) are put in two different TRQs.