Brussels, 16/10/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Friday 16 October, the EU's agricultural organisations Copa-Cogeca announced that they had sent a letter to the European Commission warning of the adverse consequences of opening further duty-free quotas for Tunisian olive oil (see EUROPE 11391).
Copa-Cogeca Secretary General Pekka Pesonen warns that increasing duty-free import quotas for Tunisian olive oil to the EU “will hit the sector badly”. He believes “it is totally unacceptable” that the Commission has proposed giving Tunisia additional “temporary access” to the EU market with a duty-free tariff rate quota of 35,000 tonnes of olive oil per year for a two-year period when “the EU market is already saturated” and when “prices in 2014 were 43% below levels seen in 2005”. Despite “the slight price recovery in 2015 (…) farm gate prices have once again tumbled since the Commission made this announcement”, Pesonen states.
The Commission's proposal would increase Tunisia's total duty-free quota to 91,700 tonnes, which would put it “on a par with total production of a country like Portugal”, Pesonen observes. “This is ludicrous” and risks “undermining the efforts made by European producers to improve the quality of their own produce”, he states. Pesonen adds that Copa-Cogeca also opposes “the Commission's proposal to eliminate the monthly management of import licences” because without this, it “is not possible to avoid high levels of imports during a short period of time” - which could result in “European prices collapsing”.
“Regional integration for trade within the Euromed countries is very important” but “also taking into account the importance of olive oil” for European producers, Pesonen states. (Original version in French by Fathi B'Chir)