At a meeting on Tuesday 9 October of the market access committee of the World Trade Organization (WTO), some twenty member countries formally expressed concern about the procedure for sharing out the European Union’s tariff rate quotas (TRQ) post-Brexit and the content of the United Kingdom’s tariff lists.
The reticent countries include the EU's major trading partners, such as the USA and China, but also Japan, India, Canada, Brazil and Australia.
These countries have raised objections about the methodology established a year ago by Brussels and London for dividing up their tariff rate quotas, along with the data provided by the EU (see EUROPE 12049, 12026). Alongside the total volume of existing TRQs, the value of access to the existing market also needs to be preserved, explain some countries.
Finally, the fact that these proposals do not cover future obligations between the EU and UK is also a source of discontent.
The EU has informed the malcontent countries that it will analyse their claims.
Any renegotiation of the quotas, which are mostly for agriculture and therefore very sensitive, will no doubt be done in close consultation with the European Parliament (see EUROPE 12106) and the member states. (Original version in French by Hermine Donceel)