The free trade agreement between the EU and New Zealand, which will include tariff rate quotas on beef and sheepmeat from the country, will enter into force on May 1, 2024.
EU Commissioner for Agriculture, Janusz Wojciechowski provided the update at a meeting of the European Parliament’s agriculture committee today (Tuesday, March 19).
The agreement will eliminate all tariffs on a range of EU exports to New Zealand, including pigmeat, and protect several EU-produced foods with geographical indication status.
Free trade agreement
The deal allows 10,000t of beef from New Zealand to be imported with a reduced duty of 7.5%. A tariff rate quota of 38,000t of duty-free sheepmeat imports will also be allowed.
The agreement will see 15,000t of milk powders imported with a 20% duty rate, along with 25,000t of cheese and 3,500t of whey imported duty free.
The duty on over 35,000t of butter imports will also be reduced. These volumes will be gradually phased in over seven years from when the agreement enters into force.
New Zealand exports under the agreement will not put at risk the EU market through unlimited imports in sensitive sectors, according to the European Commission.
The tariff rate quota for beef is only 0.15% of EU consumption and the quotas for butter, cheeses and milk powder represent 0.71%, 0.27% and 1.30% of EU consumption respectively.
European Parliament
The commission expects the notification of completion of ratification procedures by New Zealand to happen faster than previously anticipated, the commissioner said.
Thus, the date of entry into force of the free trade agreement will be Wednesday, May 1, 2024, Commissioner Wojciechowski told MEPs on the agriculture committee.
Last week, the committee received a delegated act for the implementation of the agreement for scrutiny of tariff rates and quotas included in the text, the commissioner said.
The commissioner asked MEPs to minimise the period of scrutiny of this delegated act and to communicate the formal consent in the form of an “early non-objection”.
Following the commissioner’s ask, the Agriculture and Rural Development Committee voted to pass an early non-objection by 10 votes to eight and 11 abstentions.
Delegated acts are used, typically, when legislative acts (including their annexes) have to be (regularly) adapted to take account of technical and scientific progress.
The delegated act is legally needed to implement the agreement as regards to the management of the tariff rate quotas. This does not entail any further discussion, he added.