This is a subscriber-only article
Irish farmers are right to be concerned about the prospect of trade deals that free up access to the EU market for agricultural produce. Top of the list of concerns is the level of access granted to Mercosur countries as part of a potential trade deal.
The first formal round of negotiations is due to take place in Brussels next month. There has been some confusion as to whether beef is on the agenda. Back in May, European Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development Phil Hogan stated it was removed, yet recently European Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmström appeared to suggest it would be part of any trade deal. Both are right.
Beef quota
When EU officials were drafting an initial offer to Mercosur, they circulated member states with a suggestion that a 78,000t beef quota would be included. This, along with an initial ethanol offer, didn’t make it into the initial exchange.
That didn’t go down well, with Brazil declaring it wanted 150,000t and recently Malmström said she couldn’t envisage a deal without a beef quota. She is right – there is nothing else South America wants to trade as much as beef with the EU. It will require vigilance to see what level of progress is made in negotiations but our ambition is that the issue of beef isn’t revisited until late in the talks and only when agreement looks likely. That is by no means certain as it has been a disruptive summer in Mercosur with the Brazilian president impeached and Venezuela struggling to gain acceptance. They, of course, would look at EU disruption in the form of Brexit and one of the big members choosing to leave the union!
Elsewhere, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with the US looks dead and buried well into next year, with the US continually pushing its red line issues down the track and the big EU nations of France and Germany going cool if not completely cold. Even the relatively benign Canadian trade deal looks like it will struggle for ratification with member states having been given the final say. This was uncertain after the Lisbon Treaty and even though the Commission said it was its gift to pass the decision to member states, a precedent has been set.
SHARING OPTIONS: