The EU rebuffed Washington’s idea to negotiate a limited lobster agreement, according to US news agencies.
The United States Trade Representative (USTR) reportedly promised the domestic lobster industry that he would negotiate a limited agreement with the EU to increase their exports to Europe. An attractive prospect, on the eve of the start of the Holiday season, that would help American producers, suffocated by Chinese tariff sanctions and losing market share in the EU because of the CETA between the EU and Canada, whose lobsters are now tax-free in the EU.
However, this kind of limited agreement is not in line with multilateral rules, which require that any free trade agreement include "substantially all the trade" between the two parties (GATT Article 24).
The response of EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström, in a letter dated 6 November, called, therefore, for these discussions to be undertaken in the context of bilateral negotiations aimed at liberalising trade in industries products including fisheries (see EUROPE 12236/12). These negotiations have so far not been initiated (see EUROPE 12304/25). (Original version in French by Hermine Donceel)