Brussels, 18/09/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 17 September, the European Commission and Iceland initialled two agreements on the further liberalisation of trade in agricultural products and foodstuffs and one on the protection of Geographical Indications (GIs).
These agreements represent a substantial step towards market integration between the EU and Iceland as trade will be duty-free for more than 95% of processed agricultural products and many basic agricultural products.
Currently 66.4% of EU agricultural products enter Iceland duty-free. With the new agreement, Iceland will increase the duty-free access to 91.3% of EU basic agricultural products in terms of trade value.
In addition, the EU will benefit from increased quotas sold in Iceland, particularly for cheese, beef, pigmeat and poultry. Simultaneously, Iceland will gain additional access to the EU market for its skyr exports over a transition period of 4 years (an Icelandic milk speciality from the same family as yoghurt but technically it can be considered as a very tender kind of cheese), from a current quota of 380 tonnes to 4,000 tonnes.
With the agreement on GIs, the full list of 1,150 EU's protected agricultural products and foodstuffs will enjoy in Iceland the same level of protection as in the EU market.
These agreements express the willingness of the two sides to promote and develop trade in quality products, benefiting farmers and industries in both Iceland and the EU.
Since the entry into force of the 1972 Iceland-EU free trade agreement and of the EEA agreement, tariff barriers between the EU and Iceland have remained for a number of agricultural, fish and food products. Trade in agricultural and food products between Iceland and the EU is worth over €236 million per year, on average.
The agreements will be forwarded to the relevant authorities in the EU and Iceland, for scrutiny and formal adoption before their final entry into force. (Lionel Changeur)