EU/Chile Agreement: modification of concessions on all the tariff rate quotas included in the EU Schedule CLXXV as a consequence of the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union

The Committee on International Trade adopted the report by Samira RAFAELA (Renew Europe, NL) on the draft Council decision on the conclusion, on behalf of the Union, of the Agreement between the European Union and the Republic of Chile pursuant to Article XXVIII of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) 1994 relating to the modification of concessions on all the tariff rate quotas included in the EU Schedule CLXXV as a consequence of the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union.

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

As a reminder, in October 2018, in the run-up to the UK's withdrawal from the EU, the EU formally launched negotiations under Article XXVIII of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) 1994 with a number of Members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), including the Republic of Chile. The underlying principle of the negotiations is a “joint approach” developed between the EU and the UK in 2017 on how to “apportion” the quantitative commitments contained in the EU28 WTO schedule for the 143 EU agricultural, fish and industrial WTO tariff rate quotas (TRQs).

The purpose of the agreement is to agree on the modification of concessions as notified to WTO Members and the resulting quantitative commitments on the part of the EU, which no longer includes the UK, in respect of tariff quotas for which Chile has negotiating rights under Article XXVIII of the GATT 1994.

The Republic of Chile has negotiating rights for two TRQs. They are both sub-allocations of tariff rate quota 020, concerning meat of sheep or goats, fresh, chilled or frozen. One of them applies to all contracting parties (erga omnes) and the other one is a country-specific TRQ for the Republic of Chile. While Chile accepted the volumes proposed by the EU for the former, the agreement provides for a minor downward adjustment of the country-specific TRQ, based on a different reference period.