It’s incredible that a few people here are still trying to promote EU agricultural policy. It’s one of the least desirable aspects of the EU (and there are many to choose from).
 
Whether you consider EU agricultural policy from the viewpoint of economics, environmental stewardship, morality regarding developing nations, or morality regarding animal welfare, it is an abject failure.
 
Obviously the ideologues here are not interested or informed.
 
“Greenpeace EU agriculture policy director Marco Contiero said: “The Commission’s plans offer almost no protection for health, the environment and climate. The EU props up the agriculture industry with billions every year. The least people can expect is that these investments help achieve climate and environment goals, and deliver healthy, nutritious food. The European Parliament and our governments must fix the CAP’s priorities and stop funneling money to a few large landowners and factory farms. Every one of us has a right to know that what we eat is isn’t cruel to animals, polluting our water, warming the planet or making us ill.””
 
https://www.greenpeace.org/eu-unit/issues/nature-food/1058/eu-farming-plan-could-spell-disaster-for-environment-greenpeace/

Maybe you could point us to these people promoting EU agricultural policy on here as these ideologies should be outed.


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Unlike your deliberate attempt to mislead with a blatant lie that the UK has applied to the WTO for the EU 3rd country tariff schedule. 
 
The GSP is not significant whatsoever in this debate on this forum or elsewhere, that's why the only person raising it is you.

Still going low with the incorrect “blatant lie” claim I see - how sad.

If you think zero-tariffs from Africa is not significant to the debate you clearly don’t understand the issue.


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I think Aright's link was fair, considering the date of it.
 
Now read this from: https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/09/china-is-winning-the-new-scramble-for-africa-brexit-could-change-that/
 
"The EU now allows certain processed foods such as cocoa and roasted coffee to be imported from the least developed countries tariff-free. In treating free trade as a humanitarian gesture, however, the EU merely emphasises its instinctive protectionism".

I can accept that this might be more of a case of the writer being out of touch and not up to date on the situation when the article was written in Nov 2016 with the new rule giving the zero rate coming in 1/1/2014 as can be seen in my screenshot rather than a deliberate attempt to mislead with out of date information.


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3 minutes ago, aright said:

Brexit should be good for Africa, and Africa could be good for Brexit, too

Calestous Juma, at the Harvard Kennedy School, calculates that in 2014 Africa earned nearly $2.4bn (£1.9bn) from coffee grown in rich African soil and picked by African workers. By contrast, Germany’s coffee processing industry makes $3.8bn from roasting imported raw beans and then re-exporting them. Surely, you would think, African countries would roast their own crop before exporting it to Europe so they could reap the extra value.

The EU, however, slaps a 7.5pc charge on roasted coffee imports. The tariff perfectly protects German coffee processors while stunting African manufacturing. The EU has tried to address the worst iniquities of its trade policies in recent years but the Common Agricultural Policy contains a complex system of subsidies which harms African agricultural competitiveness. With more than 60pc of Africa’s economically active population working in agriculture, it takes a toll on the livelihoods of millions of Africans

 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/11/06/brexit-should-be-good-for-africa-and-africa-could-be-good-for-br/

 

Sorry but no.

 

the full rate of duty on roasted coffee is 7.5% but does not apply in the vast majority of cases for Africa  - I believe Gabon is the exception as they have not ratified the agreement.

 

the largest coffee producer in Africa is Ethiopia and they have duty free access to EU for coffee whether roasted or not.

 

 https://www.trade-tariff.service.gov.uk/trade-tariff/commodities/0901210000?country=ET&day=16&month=10&year=2018#import

 

 

Just read your initial post to me on the topic and compare it with your final post. If you can think of a better way to describe the disparity you're welcome to try. 

 

Regarding the GSP, it is 4 decades old, not an EU initiative.

 

I haven't been able to find a useful analysis of the benefits, but I'll wager that it doesn't come anywhere close to repairing the damage done by the EU's policy of dumping agricultural produce on Africa. Such produce is of course created via huge subsidies - 40% of the EU budget, paid for by us - the citizens. To summarise, we subsidise EU farmers to produce unwanted food, just so that we can dump it on Africa, thereby putting African farmers out of business and fuelling the migration crisis.

 

Personally I'm delighted to know that the UK will no longer be contributing to this abusive system.

 

Yes the GSP system is that old and was designed to allow access to developed markets from poorer countries. As I said, the changes/additions to it made by the EU are important and the EBA addons has opened it up significantly.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything_but_Arms

 

 

I agree with you that, in the past the EU has mistreated Africa much on the same was as other major power grouping have done in the past (US fruit growers in Central America and Carribbean spring to mind) and deserve condemnation for that but that should not distract from the changes that have been put in place over the last few years that are starting to see things improve.

 

Indeed by just looking at the past it is a massive distraction from the current situation and how it will effect us specifically if good terms cannot be reached in Brexit and lead to an imposition of high agricultural tariffs on the vast bulk of our imported foodstuffs.

 

 

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EU chicken dumping starves Africa
 
“The European Union has a long and shameful history of abusive agricultural trade practices directed at Africa and other developing regions. Its predatory approach has had a catastrophic effect and has devastated poultry farmers and producers in Africa and elsewhere.
Over the past 20 years, the EU has used its economic partnership agreements to enable their highly subsidised agricultural products to be dumped in Africa, with destructive consequences for job-starved rural communities in low- and middle-income countries.”
 
https://mg.co.za/article/2017-11-10-00-eu-chicken-dumping-starves-africa

Yes - things have been bad in the past but are changing now.

From your article

“In Ghana, its recently completed economic partnership agreement with the EU now excludes the poultry industry. Cameroon and Senegal have imposed import bans or countervailing duties and the industry is slowly starting to recover.”


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Ok I found your Chad info. On the surface, that looks very promising, and long overdue. I'd be interested in an analysis of the size and value of the GSP benefits to Africa, the history of GSP, whether quotas apply, etc. Let me know if you know of such a summary.
 
On the other hand this is one of my earlier links showing the bigger picture that you may have missed.
 
 https://www.politico.eu/article/eus-milk-scramble-for-africa/
 
 

The milk issue was mentioned when you posted to previously. It is a problem but it needs to be balanced by the fact that most of these African countries can apply tariffs on these imports from the EU if they wish - the EBA arrangement is asymmetrical in that African nations do not have to remove their own tariffs.

The main reason they set milk powder to zero was because they looked at it as a nutritional need and their own dairy producers cannot yet produce the quantities needed to meet their domestic needs though, as in virtually all systems, it creates an opportunity for big multinationals to exploit. Not sure of the answer to this - maybe some form of flexible tariff to make sure that when ag products drop below a certain value then the can apply a tariff but this demands more flexibility in being able to swiftly increase/reduce tariffs than current systems can handle and it also needs to be remembered that any tariff is, in effect, a tax on the consumer so tariffs on milk powder could we increase prices to the most needy in a society.

I am not sure where I could find this very specific summary for you on GSP benefits for Africa since GSP varies depending on the destination - EU is different from US. The one I posted earlier should do the trick:

http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2017/november/tradoc_156399.pdf


There are plenty of resources out there about the history of GSP which goes back much further that the EBA scheme and it has changed significantly since it was initially introduced but, since I noticed a few days ago that you claimed you had qualifications in International Trade, I am very surprised you are not fully aware of it.



I gave you the silly example of cheese from Chad earlier as an example but it was the first thing that came into my head and, rather than me post many more of them, why don’t you give me a example of a product where the full duty is applied on import to EU which avoids you and others thinking I am cherry picking my answers since that was the very point I got in this conversation about a few days ago.


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2 minutes ago, My Thai Life said:

You still haven't supplied any evidence for zero rated foodstuffs currently coming into the UK.

 

The tariffs that I quoted (that you refer to above) are current EU import tariffs. You have still failed to show specific evidence that these foodstuff are zero tariffed by the EU at present.

 

The UK is under no obligation to use the EU tariffs post Brexit. That's the whole idea behind having control of our trade policy! That's why the UK voted out! There has been no proposal to do so, and obviously it would be madness to do so.

 

I remember there was a speculative and fear-mongering article in The Independent that was posted here a month or two ago. That's probably what you're getting confused about.

 

 

 

 

 

It was covered in the EU docs i attached. You asked me to prove this a few days ago and give an example of a dairy product that was duty free from Africa and I randomly picked cheese from Chad and posted the EU link showing it as duty free under gsp. I am not sure what more i can provide to convince you since i have given you botg technical regulation and sn example.

 

Maybe you could provide examples of foodstuffs from Africa where full duty is applicable or even pick some ag. products  you want me to get the figures for you on.

6 minutes ago, My Thai Life said:

Exactly, so your previous post claiming the UK has notified the WTO of using the EUs external tariff is not true. And it seems from this post that you it at the time. 

 

7 minutes ago, My Thai Life said:

Exactly, so your previous post claiming the UK has notified the WTO of using the EUs external tariff is not true. And it seems from this post that you it at the time. 

 

As you have pointed out and as the article i linked to made clear, the UK has submitted a schedule but it is under scrutiny by WTO for three months. My point is, that since there has not been time for the UK to come up with a new schedule that differs ftom the EU it will almost certainly be the EU one - it was even mentioned in the press that  the TQ parts were still in euros to keep things simple.

8 minutes ago, nauseus said:

This statement could do with some real evidence, please.

 

 

Looks like the UK has been short-changing the EU for around € 2.7 billion:
 

Brussels, 24 September 2018

Based on a proposal by the Commissioner for Budget and Human Resources, Günther H. Oettinger, today the European Commission has decided to send a Reasoned Opinion to the United Kingdom because of its failure to make customs duties available to the EU budget, as required by EU law.

This is the second step the Commission is taking in the formal infringement procedure for this case in order to protect the financial interests of the EU. In March 2018, the Commission opened the infringement procedure following a 2017 report by the EU's anti-fraud body OLAF, which found that importers in the United Kingdom evaded a large amount of customs duties by using fictitious and false invoices and incorrect customs value declarations at importation. Further Commission inspections confirmed the very large scale of this undervaluation fraud scheme operating through British ports between 2011 and 2017. Despite having been informed of the risks of fraud relating to the imports of textiles and footwear originating from the People's Republic of China since 2007, and despite having been asked to take appropriate risk control measures, the United Kingdom failed to take effective action to prevent the fraud.

The Commission calculates that the infringement of EU legislation by the United Kingdom resulted in losses to the EU budget amounting to €2.7 billion (plus interest and minus collection costs) during the period between November 2011 and October 2017. In addition, the United Kingdom also infringed EU Value Added Tax legislation, leading to additional potential losses to the EU budget.

All Member States are liable for the financial consequences of their infringements of EU law.

The United Kingdom now has two months to act; otherwise the Commission may refer the case to the Court of Justice of the EU.

It has been an issue for many years and, as the EU are saying, U.K. HMRC put very little effort in dealing with it particularly for our large clothing importers. I had retired before the period in question but some of the invoices I used to see were ridiculous- one major high street name brought in a container load of ladies night gowns and prices them at 6p each


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"On 24 July 2018 the United Kingdom submitted to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) draft new national schedules of tariffs and equivalent charges on UK imports of goods, to come into effect when the UK leaves the European Union.  Their contents will become public in due course.  For now they are confidential to WTO member governments (including the EU27), who have been given three months in which to offer comments through the WTO machinery.  This article explains why the UK initiative is necessary, and the procedures which it sets in motion."

 

Mchael Johnson, former senior official at the DTI.

 

Please note it says nothing about applying the EU external tariff.

 

 

 

The U.K. has not had the time to agree a new tariff schedule which would involve a massive consultation with industry and take more time than has been available so far - also there has been no mention from govt or industry that any of these talks have specifically taken place yet.

 

If the U.K. has submitted a tariff that varies from the EU one it would be a massive task to get it through the WTO where any member could block it whereas the hope would be, that by adopting the same tariffs that are currently in place, this can get through quickly.

 

There is nothing to say we cannot do this later after Brexit but it is a massive task, difficult to get through WTO/EU and puts us in a tough position negotiating new trade deals - why would anyone want to negotiate with us it they didn’t know what our position regarding tariffs was going to be.

 

 

https://blogs.fco.gov.uk/julianbraithwaite/2017/01/23/ensuring-a-smooth-transition-in-the-wto-as-we-leave-the-eu/

 

 

 

 

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12 minutes ago, My Thai Life said:

You repeatedly claim this. Please provide specific evidence, about foodstuffs.

Again - I did this a couple of days ago and you vanished.

 

Here is an overview of EU imports from Africa

 

http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2017/november/tradoc_156399.pdf

 

And the specific regulation enabling it

 

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=1539751942265&uri=CELEX:32012R0978

 

 

This is the latest U.K. Govt report on our food supply

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/food-statistics-pocketbook-2017/food-statistics-in-your-pocket-2017-global-and-uk-supply

 

That shows we only produce 50% of our own foodstuff and 30% from the EU - that means 60% of the food we import is from the EU alone and will be subject to tariffs without a deal before you add on the current zero-rated stuff under FTA/preference deals.

 

As a reminder here are the tariffs that you posted earlier that will start applying to all the imports that are currently zero-rated if we leave without a deal

Various posters seem to favour  staying in the Customs Union. I wonder if they know that:
 
“As a customs union member, the UK must charge rather high tariffs, at rates set by Brussels, on various exports from outside the EU. So British shoppers will keep paying more for imports from around the world, particularly food, clothing and shoes – given that prices include tariffs designed to protect uncompetitive producers in other EU states.
 

Under customs-union rules, 80pc of these tariff revenues go to Brussels – billions of pounds each year. And because the UK trades more with non-EU countries than other large EU members do, we pay an unfairly high share of the combined tariff revenues.”

 
No wonder the EU wants us in the CU (apart from all the other reason)!
 
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2018/10/13/staying-customs-union-not-option/

You are ignoring all the various FTA deals and other preference agreements that the EU has in place which means that the majority of imports into the U.K. do not have these high tariffs applied to them and, when it comes to foodstuffs,the vast majority comes from countries where zero tariffs apply.

The U.K. has already submitted to the WTO that we will be applying the EU external tariff after Brexit which effectively means that these high tariffs that you point out will be applied to the bulk of our imports and will cause a significant increase in the price of foodstuffs.


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Nigel Farage is still MEP, representing the Queen of England in Brussels?

Not sure that is strictly correct.

MEPs for EU and MPs for UK represent the people. Technically the Govt and appointees which would include our Commissioner to the EU represent the Queen.


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Sorry, I meant to say it's an understandable mess.

Not really - there are many long standing agreements/preferences such as the original GSP/LDDC ones that have been around for decades along with newer EPAs and FTAs that have needed to fit round them. You don’t honestly believe that trade deals are easy do you?


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Lots of different colours there, looks quite a mess.

Tough audience! First one was too green to be understood and now the new one is too colourful.


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29 minutes ago, aright said:

Thanks for the link unfortunately I could find no reference to a green map in there. The map is only significant if I can see and perhaps question the supporting evidence.

 

If you don't think or can't find a link holding EU policy in high regard you certainly spend time defending it.

 

We have reached impasse I have shown you various links on EU trade which you don't accept and you have shown me a green map which purportedly comes from a site specialising in EU Law which I can't find .

I'm out of here!  

 

A 2016 link

“Far from levelling the playing field the EU reinforces the structural inequalities that favour big businesses and powerful countries at the expense of developing nations.”

James Cleverly

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/26/eu-is-responsible-for-using-taxpayers-money-to-undercut-african/

 

Apologies for not linking to the map there - it comes from here which is a link I posted earlier:

 

http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2017/november/tradoc_156399.pdf

 

Plenty more details in there about EBA and tariff free access for African countries as well.

 

There is also a better version of the map below which is easier to read.

 

Still not interested in your request for your link since this is not a claim I have made or need to support.

 

The Cleverly article is an interesting one but clearly a political perspective about someone identified as eurosceptic and refers back to what has been happening for decades but makes no mention of the new agreements in the link above. The other oddity in the article is:

 

“Mr Cleverly, whose mother is from Sierra Leone, will say these heavily subsidised surpluses "completely distort African and other markets" and "undercut the prices of domestically produced food", such as coffee and chocolate.”

 

The odd thing being that coffee and cocoa for chocolate are not really produced in the EU  but often came from these very developing countries. The largest African producer of coffee is Ethiopia and it can export that to the EU free of duty under the GSP scheme. The worlds largest producer of cocoa is Ivory Coast and under their EPA agreement with the EU they can export both this and chocolate free of duty to the EU so I find it difficult to understand how the EU is able to undercut their domestic prices if they produce this stuff in the first place.

 

 

19 minutes ago, aright said:

Former international development secretary Andrew Mitchell speaks for Africa’s 1 billion people when he writes “the world is moving to a freer trading regime, protectionism is declining and discredited” (A plea to fellow Tories: let’s not relive the Maastricht years, 22 February). No continent is more desperate for a freer trading regime than Africa. Yet, despite their rhetoric about supporting Africa, no other continental bloc administers a more comprehensive trade protection against Africa than the European Union.

 

 

Sam Akaki
Director, Democratic Institutions for Poverty Reduction in Africa

 

You of course are in touch whilst Andrew Mitchell, and Sam Akaki are out of touch and the other two links don't count then.

 

So far I have given you three links inditing  EU export import policy  which  you have swept  aside preferring like most remainers to be in denial of any thing which criticises the EU. I asked  you to tell me the changes that had taken place in trading policy...….no answer,  you give me a green map with no reference.

Can you provide me with a link which says EU trading policy  has global high regard? 

 

Bizarre

 

i have no problem specifically with what Andrew Mitchell says since he makes no mention of Africa or developing countries and it is just a vague reference to changing trading patterns globally with less protectionism which is exactly my point regarding EU removing barriers to African imports.

 

My specific problem with the Sam Akaki letter was his line the EU imposed stiff tariffs on African agricultural imports to the EU but, oddly, this line has now disappeared from your post along with the link that originally contained it.

 

The previous links you provided I pointed out either were over 15 years old and out of date or did not refer to developing markets which is what we were discussing.

 

I am sorry you couldn’t understand the map as I thought it was the simplest way of demonstrating the various new deals in place to remove tariffs from developing countries in Africa showing which preference agreement were applicable for each - if you want the full details they are here but, trust me the map is simpler.

 

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=1539523719649&uri=CELEX:32012R0978

 

As for me providing some link saying EU trading policy is held in high regard, can’t say I have ever seen one but, there again, it is not a claim I have ever made.

10 minutes ago, My Thai Life said:

Nonsense, "zero and removal" have to be agreed by relevant parties, otherwise they do not exist.

 

Yes I did put a position earlier, to which you have not provided a coherent response. I asked you earlier to provide evidence for zero tariffs for agricultural produce into the EU in areas that the EU is competitive in - let's say dairy. If you can do this then you are adding to the knowledge on this thread to date, and I will greatly credit you for it; if you can't do this you are merely adding to the posturing and BS.

 

Picked a random dairy product - cheese from Chad. Duty free with GSP cert.

 

https://www.trade-tariff.service.gov.uk/trade-tariff/commodities/0406303100?country=TD&day=13&month=10&year=2018#import

 

 

7 minutes ago, My Thai Life said:

Eh? Please try English.

 

Who is applying which subsidies to whom, where and when?

 

 

Erm nobody - that is what zero and total removal mean.

 

We did discuss this earlier in case it has slipped your memory.

10 minutes ago, aright said:

You are misinterpreting the article but try this one

 

The EU common agriculture policy enables, if not compels, EU farmers to dump their excess but cheap farm produce on African markets, thus forcing African farmers to sell their products at a loss or leave the market altogether. And, while pushing for ever more foreign aid to Africa, the EU also imposes stiff tariffs on African agricultural imports, thus making it impossible for Africa to trade itself out of poverty. 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/28/the-european-union-is-an-ongoing-disaster-for-africa

 

 

It is a letter in the Guardian which seems to be rather out of touch. As I have already pointed out earlier with links, the EU no longer imposes stiff tariffs on African agricultural imports  so the letter writer is wrong in his assertion. 

 

Here are are the current preference agreements in place.

 

 

 

Really?

 

"While 15 of the 20 countries to have passed the highest number of trade-restricting policies since the financial crisis are advanced economies, many others have also imposed harmful measures.

India, Russia and Argentina have all imposed hundreds of harmful trade policies across the research"period.

But we were not talking about developing nations imposing trade restricting policies but the EU imposing them on developing nations.


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