Legislative Observatory
European Parliament
Please fill in this field to find a procedure

EU/Euratom/Ukraine Association Agreement: trade preferences for poultry meat and poultry meat preparations

2019/0132(NLE)

The Committee on International Trade adopted the report by Enikő GYŐRI (EPP, HU) on the draft Council decision on conclusion, on behalf of the Union, of the Agreement in the form of an exchange of letters between the European Union and Ukraine amending the trade preferences for poultry meat and poultry meat preparations provided for by the Association Agreement between the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community and their Member States, of the one part, and Ukraine, of the other part.

The committee recommended that the European Parliament give its consent to conclusion of the agreement.

As a reminder, under a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA), which is part of the Association Agreement between EU and Ukraine signed in 2014, most tariff lines are liberalised or are subject to specific tariff rate quotas. Poultry meat and poultry meat products are considered as sensitive items. Therefore, they are subject to a duty-free tariff rate quota (TRQ) under DCFTA.

However, the Ukrainian poultry imports of fresh or frozen “other” cuts under the tariff lines CN 0207 13 70 and 0207 14 70 are liberalised without any quantitative restrictions. Since 2016 the EU has been receiving exponentially increasing amounts of poultry cuts exactly under these two unprotected tariff lines, with imports rising from 3.700 tons in 2016 to more than 55.000 tons in 2018.

Therefore, the committee recommends Parliament to give consent to this amending agreement as it provides a solution for the current situation caused by the excess import of Ukrainian poultry meat, namely by:

- integrating the two tariff lines CN 0207 13 70 and 0207 14 70 into the existing tariff rate quota (TRQ);

- increasing the size of the TRQ by 50 000 tons and subjecting all the excess imports of the above-mentioned tariff lines as well as other tariff lines to MFN duty rate.

The rapporteur called for a quick implementation of the agreement concluded in the form of exchange of letters, modifying the trade preferences for poultry meat and poultry meat preparations, as this creates a stable and predictable trading environment by closing the existing gaps under the current provisions.