On Thursday 6 July, the EU and Japan reached an agreement in principle in Brussels on the essential elements of an economic partnership agreement (see other article). Under this free trade agreement, around 85% of EU agri-food products (in tariff lines) will be authorised to enter Japan entirely duty-free. This corresponds to 87% of current agri-food exports by value.
Japan is a much-valued export market for farmers and food producers in the EU. With annual exports of over €5.7 billion, Japan is already the fourth biggest EU market for agricultural exports. European Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan said this was "the most ambitious agreement ever concluded in the agricultural domain".
The agreement will remove or significantly reduce duties on agricultural products in which the EU has a major export interest, such as pork, the EU's main agricultural export to Japan, ensuring duty-free trade with processed pork meat and almost duty-free trade for fresh pork meat exports. Tariffs on beef will be cut from 38.5% to 9% over 15 years for a significant volume of beef products (43,500 tonnes per year, with a higher customs duty beyond, a quantity extrapolated to 50,500 tonnes in a period of 15 years).
EU wine exports to Japan are already worth around €1 billion and represent the EU's second biggest agricultural export to Japan by value. The tariffs on wine will be scrapped from day one, as will tariffs for other alcoholic drinks (sherry, vermouth, cider). The scrapping of customs duties will reportedly represent a saving of €134 million per year for wine producers.
As regards cheese exports, where the EU is already the main player on the Japanese market, high duties on many hard cheeses such as gouda and cheddar (which currently are at 29.8%) will be eliminated, and a duty-free quota (from 20,000 tonnes to 31,000 tonnes over 15 years) will be established for fresh cheeses such as mozzarella, camembert and feta. The EU-Japan agreement will also scrap customs duties (with a transitional period) for processed agricultural products such as pasta, chocolates, cocoa powder, candies, confectionary, biscuits, starch derivatives, prepared tomatoes and tomato sauce. There will also be significant quotas for EU exports (duty-free or with reduced duty) of malt, potato starch, skimmed milk powder, butter and whey.
With regard to geographical indications, the EU-Japan agreement recognises the special status and offers protection on the Japanese market to 205 European agricultural products from a specific European geographical origin – for instance roquefort, aceto balsamico di Modena, prosecco, jambon d'Ardenne, Tiroler Speck, Polska wódka, queso Manchego, Lübecker marzipan and Irish whiskey. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)