At a meeting with Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström in Brussels on Monday 19 September, the presidents of Copa and Cogeca (farmers’ and agri-cooperative organisations in the EU) highlighted the importance of free-trade agreements with third countries to improving “the critical situation on EU agricultural markets”, a Copa-Cogeca press release says (see other articles).
Copa President Martin Merrild said that the free-trade deals with Japan, Mexico and Indonesia “could benefit the EU market substantially. We urge the EU to strike a free-trade deal with Japan in the next six months, especially as it’s our second biggest export market for pork”.
Why such distaste for TTIP? Merrild underlined that the trade talks with the United States (TTIP) present “both opportunities and challenges on both sides of the Atlantic”. He wondered “why there are so many protests on this in the EU when we do not know what would be in a potential deal”. He called above all for the removal of non-tariff barriers. Three-quarters of the gains would come from a lifting of these barriers. “We have not seen much movement here. EU dairy producers for example face big obstacles when trying to market Grade A milk products in the US which effectively stop our exports from entering the USA. The same situation applies for our fruit and vegetable exports”, he stated.
No to agreement with Mercosur. Cogeca President Thomas Magnusson highlighted the importance of trade for agri-cooperatives. “It’s important for farmers to belong to strong cooperatives to find new market outlets for produce and to enable farmers to get a better price for it”, he said. He went on to warn that Copa and Cogeca have serious concerns about a potential free trade deal with the Latin American trade bloc Mercosur, saying it risks having a catastrophic impact especially on the EU beef and poultry sector.
The commissioner promised to take the concerns of Copa and Cogeca into account, saying that a cumulative impact assessment of the concessions made in free-trade agreements is set to be released later in autumn. Elsewhere, Copa-Cogeca criticised the content of the economic partnership agreement (EPA) between the EU and six of the countries belonging to the Southern African Development Community (see EUROPE 11624), arguing that it could increase trade concessions on imports of oranges, sugar and ethanol from these countries. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)