21/5/2004
Facilitating food and agriculture trade: EU ‘s Strong Commitment

A meeting of EU Agriculture Ministers in Killarney this week confirmed the EU's commitment to a strong relationship with developing countries, particularly as regards trade in food and agriculture products. To facilitate this type of trade, the European Commission has put in place clear food safety rules as well as guidelines on how to apply the rules. The Commission also finances technical assistance projects to help developing countries live up to the EU food safety standards. Furthermore, the EU reaffirmed its strong commitment to create better market opportunities for developing countries through the ongoing WTO Doha Development Agenda.

David Byrne, Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection, said “The EU has the most open food import regime in the world. Without largely tariff free access for our markets developing countries would face even bigger problems. Meeting the EU´s standards of food safety also helps them produce safer food for their own population. Food trade with the EU is a win-win situation for developing countries, including best developed nations.”

Franz Fischler, Commissioner for Agriculture, Rural Development and Fisheries added: “Poorer countries need support to meet international production standards. They need a steep cut in trade-distorting farm subsidies in rich countries and better access to agricultural markets. In Short, they need a special deal in the WTO, they need trade AND aid. That is precisely what the EU is proposing”.

How to access the EU market

To ensure that imported products live up to EU food safety standards, imports are only allowed from “listed” countries and establishments. This means that their compliance with EU food safety rules has been checked and they appear on a list managed by the European Commission on behalf of the EU Member States. The EU imports from 100 countries around the world. A large country like Brazil has 473 listed establishments while smaller countries often also have a significant number of establishments approved for trade with the EU. For example, Ghana has 67 establishments listed for fishery products. The Commission maintains direct contact with the competent authorities and embassies of the countries wishing to be listed for exports to the EU. Establishments wishing to be listed must contact the appropriate national authority in their country.

Regionalisation: flexibility without compromising safety

Without compromising the overall objective of ensuring food safety, the EU shows flexibility where possible. For example, regarding outbreaks of highly infectious animal diseases like foot-and-mouth disease, the EU will not risk accepting imports under unsafe conditions. However, where it is feasible, the EU applies the principle of regionalisation.

This means that the EU can allow imports of fresh beef from countries like Brazil, Argentina and South Africa while banning imports from certain regions in those countries where the disease is present. This flexible approach is generally not copied by other developed countries nor by most developing countries, which means that in return the EU often faces discriminatory practices whereby an outbreak of a disease in one Member State might lead to exports from the whole of the EU being banned.

Technical assistance

The EU and its Member States are the largest development donors in the world both in absolute and relative terms. Part of this effort goes towards assisting developing countries in meeting the EU food safety requirements through technical assistance and capacity building. For example, a large-scale framework programme for fisheries is available for 60 ACP (Africa Caribbean and Pacific) countries and 8 overseas territories of EU Member States to improve access of their fisheries products to the world market by strengthening export health controls and improving production conditions. Particular attention is given to ensure that products from small-scale fisheries are not excluded from global markets. In addition to this €54m programme, the Commission is funding a €28m Pesticides Initiative Programme which aims to help with adapting horticultural exports to EU import requirements and a new €50m instrument for trade capacity building called TRADE.COM, is expected to be operational in mid-2004. One of the three components of TRADE.COM is to assist ACP partners to address specific problems and obstacles to trade, notably compliance with food safety requirements for export into the EU. Further to this, the Commission has established a programme, worth €1million in 2004, to assist developing countries to play a full part in the international standards-setting organisations in the areas of food safety, animal and plant health, and also to provide them with expertise and training for specific problems such as residue testing, aimed at facilitating access to the EU market.

The Commission also finances projects in specific countries, for example an export development programme in Zambia supporting Producer Associations and groups of enterprises in agricultural or manufacturing sub-sectors covering high value crops like spices, herbs and essential oils as well as animal products, leather products, other manufactures and processed foods. The aim is to increase output, exports and productivity in these selected export-led sub-sectors. The financing earmarked for this four-year programme is approximately EUR 6.5 million.

The new Regulation on Food and Feed Controls which will enter into force on 1 January 2006 includes training and “twinning” projects where EU Member State experts will work closely with a designated developing country to assist it in meeting the requirements in the new Regulation.

Guidelines to facilitate trade

The clear food safety rules necessary for trade are established at the EU level. Guidelines to explain the EU's import requirements for animals and animal products have been produced by the European Commission's Food and Veterinary Office (FVO) as part of efforts to facilitate safe food trade with third countries. They spell out in non-legal language what the EU expects from companies wishing to export to the EU. The guidelines are based on existing legislative requirements and specific needs identified by FVO inspectors in their contacts with third country partners. The aim is to provide service-oriented explanations of the sometimes complex EU legislation. A particular focus has been put on clearly explaining the steps that developing countries must take, thereby facilitating access to the EU market for their products. The guidelines are available in English, French and Spanish.

In addition a new Help Desk aimed at exporters in developing countries was launched earlier this year providing free-of-charge, on-line information on customs duties, customs documentation, rules of origin and trade statistics. This facility will be updated in the autumn with information on product specific import requirements such as food safety standards.

EU agriculture and developing countries

The European Union is not a fortress. The EU is the world's largest customer for farm products from developing countries, importing as much as the US, Japan, Canada, Australia and New Zealand taken together. The EU alone absorbs around 85% of Africa's agricultural exports. And the average tariff for imports of farm goods to Europe is 10.5%, whereas the average tariff in Brazil is 30% and among developing countries 60%.

But the EU wants to do more. In the ongoing WTO negotiations the EU offers the following targeted measures for developing countries:

1. The EU is ready to move regarding the elimination of all forms of export subsidies. Our condition is strict parallelism. Other forms of export promotion, which equally harm developing countries, such as US export credits and export support in the guise of “food aid”, or Canada's and others state trading monopolies have to go as well.
2. Developing countries should have the right to cut their tariffs and trade distorting farm subsidies considerably less and over a longer period.
3. The EU wants a “food security box” to help developing countries meet their justified concerns on sensitive agricultural crops, while a special safeguard instrument should ensure their food security.
4. Developing countries should also need the possibility to support their agricultural sector for developmental reasons.
5. All industrialised countries shall give completely duty and quota free access to their markets for exports from the 49 poorest countries in the world. The EU has already made this step, now it is time that the other industrialised countries follow our example.
6. We further propose that industrialised states shall grant zero duty access to at least 50% of their imports from the remaining developing countries.
7. And the EU finally offered to address tariff escalation, which undermines to such a significant extent the ability of developing countries to develop value-added exports.