The EU and the US have agreed to suspend the application of harmful tariffs worth US $11.5 billion (€9.5 billion) for a period of five years.
The tariffs – imposed as a consequence of a dispute over illegal subsidies to aircraft manufacturer Airbus – “hurt companies and people on both sides of the Atlantic”, the EU said in a statement today (Tuesday, June 15).
European Commission Executive Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis and US Trade Representative Katherine Tai reached an understanding relating to large civil aircraft, “transforming almost 17 years of disputes into a forward-looking, collaborative platform to address bilateral issues as well as global challenges”, the European Commission says.
Both sides will now “seek to overcome long-standing differences in order to avoid future litigation and preserve a level playing field between aircraft manufacturers”.
The two sides will collaborate on jointly analysing and addressing non-market practices of third parties that may harm large civil aircraft sectors, it was added.
Irish products which had been subject to “additional import duties of 25% ad valorem” included: single-malt Irish whiskey; liqueurs; cheese; pork; yogurt; butter; dairy spreads; fats and oils derived from milk; and a variety of seafood.
These tariffs were initially suspended by both sides for a four-month period back in March.
The European Union and the United States disputes on Large Civil Aircraft (the “Airbus-Boeing Dispute”) is the longest running dispute in the history of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
It started in 2004, when the US filed a case at the WTO against the EU, arguing that the bloc was illegally subsidising the Airbus. The EU also filed a complaint against the US in May 2005, for its unlawful support to Boeing.
Following WTO decisions, both the US (in October 2019) and the EU (in November 2020) imposed punitive tariffs on each other’s exports, affecting in total a value of US $11.5 billion of trade between the two sides.
As a result, EU and US businesses have had to pay over US$3.3 billion in duties.