The European Union's main trading partners in the WTO are opposed to the apportionment of its tariff rate quotas with the United Kingdom.
This system, which concerns 196 individual concessions covering more than 365 tariff lines, is based on the respective share of quota utilisation by both parties (see EUROPE 12130).
However, more than 20 WTO members said they were harmed by this distribution key at a meeting of the Council for Trade in Goods on Monday 12 November in Geneva.
Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Mexico, New Zealand, Paraguay, Taiwan, Thailand, the United States and Uruguay co-signed a communication requesting an appropriate compensation mechanism from the EU.
According to a Geneva source, this communication notes that the EU has made no commitment on how to account for trade between the United Kingdom and other EU countries, a figure that WTO members also use to qualify the type of market access to which their products will be subject.
Finally, the twelve countries behind the initiative are concerned that the EU will implement this system before the negotiations with its WTO partners are concluded, as the EU wants to ensure a default system as of Brexitday, scheduled for 29 March 2019.
Fifteen other countries, including Switzerland and Korea, also took the floor to express their reservations.
In July 2018, the EU had informed the WTO of its proposal to allocate certain tariff rate quotas between the EU Twenty-Seven and the United Kingdom on the basis of the ‘respective share of use‘ of the two parties. The EU has stated in its proposal that it is ready to enter into negotiations with the appropriate members. The last revision was distributed on 19 October. (Original version in French by Hermine Donceel)