Copa Cogeca: EU-Australia deal raises strong concerns for farmers
The signing of the EU-Australia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) raises "multiple and strong concerns for European agriculture", according to Copa Cogeca.
The umbrella organisation, representing European farmers and agri-cooperatives, was reacting after the deal was agreed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
The deal will see tariffs will go down to zero on all products, including for EU exports of wine, chocolate, sugar confectionary and ice cream.
For some "sensitive products", access to the EU market will be "limited through carefully calibrated tariff rate quotas" which will be "gradually implemented".
The EU will open two tariff rate quotas (TRQs) for Australian beef totalling 30,600t, with 55% entering duty-free and subject to a 'grass-fed' conditionality.
The EU Commission said the deal includes "robust safeguard measures for the agri-food sector".
Copa Cogeca
Copa Cogeca has slammed the decision to grant new tariff concessions to Australia in sensitive sectors.
The organisation said that agriculture is "once again the bargaining chip of the EU strategy to secure broader trade and political objectives".
"A vision that responds to the emergencies of the moment, but whose medium-term consequences will be unsustainable for many sensitive farming sectors.
"The significant concessions on highly sensitive agricultural sectors, particularly beef (30,600 t TRQ), sheep meat (25,000t TRQ – with only 27% frozen,) sugar (35,000t TRQ) and rice (8,500t TRQ), have long drawn strong opposition and concern from the farming community.
"In a post-Mercosur context, the cumulative impact of successive trade agreements makes these concessions unacceptable.
"Even for a traditionally more offensive sector like wine, the potential benefits of this agreement remain elusive, with Australian exporters likely to see more benefits due to the elimination of duties," Copa Cogeca added.
Farmers
Copa Cogeca said that the new agreement cannot be separated from "the very complex market context which affects European agriculture".
"Farmers across the EU are facing increases on all input costs, persistent inflationary pressures, prices that don’t keep up, and increasing uncertainty linked to the developments in Iran and all the broader geopolitical context.
"Further openings of these sensitive sectors to free trade agreements would only worsen existing vulnerabilities and push many EU family farms to the breaking point," it said.
"European farmers cannot continue to absorb the cost of bilateral trade liberalisation without adequate and truly effective safeguards.
"For now, such mechanisms proposed by the commission remain more like communication tools to promote hardly acceptable agreements than truly effective mechanisms that can be activated in the event of a crisis," Copa Cogeca added.
