EU/China 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 European Parliament adopted by 603 votes to 3, with 33 abstentions, a legislative resolution on the draft Council decision on the conclusion, on behalf of the Union, of the Agreement in the form of an Exchange of Letters between the European Union and the People`s Republic of China 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 European Parliament gave its consent to the conclusion of the agreement.

As a reminder, in view of the United Kingdom's (UK) withdrawal from the European Union (EU), in October 2018, 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 People`s Republic of China. 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 basis of this approach is that the existing volume of each TRQ would be fully maintained after the UK's withdrawal from the EU, but split across two separate customs territories, the EU27 and the UK.

China has negotiating rights for 32 TRQs and consultation rights for 11 TRQs. For the majority of the TRQs where China is concerned, the original EU proposed apportioned volumes were accepted by China, with the exception of 10 TRQs. Changes of volumes were agreed in the 2 tariff rate quotas concerning garlic and processed poultry meat. As regards the changes to the 8 other TRQs, here China accepts the TRQ volume modifications already included in agreements between the EU and other WTO partners (more specifically USA and Brazil).