U.S. dairy decries EU-Canada trade agreement market barriers

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The text of the European Union-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) released at the end of last week contains provisions on geographical indications (GIs) and reallocates a portion of the World Trade Organization tariff rate quota for cheese to the EU.

The U.S. dairy industry expressed concern today that these provisions would raise artificial trade barriers restricting market access for American cheeses to the Canadian market. In addition, CETA provided very limited access to many EU dairy products as a result of the agreement’s prioritization of the GI goals of a few “squeaky wheels,” at the expense of broader gains across the full EU dairy industry, according to U.S. dairy industry trade groups.

The provisions on geographical indications are particularly alarming because they grant automatic protection to the EU for “asiago,” “feta,” “fontina,” “gorgonzola” and “munster” in complete disregard of Canadian intellectual property laws. Cheese manufacturers that produced those cheeses prior to October 18, 2013, will be allowed to continue to use those names, but future producers of those cheeses will have to add qualifiers, such as “kind,” “type,” “style” and “imitation.” These new limitations on the use of generic names clearly violate Canadian intellectual property procedures and existing international trade commitments.

“The automatic protection for five cheese names that are generic in Canada, the U.S. and globally is another example of the EU’s overreach on geographical indications,” said Clay Hough, senior group vice president of the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA). “The EU’s GI strategy is incompatible with the fundamental goal of a trade negotiation, which is to remove trade barriers—not add them—and allow for greater competition.”

As part of the agreement, Canada also reallocated 800 metric tons of its 20,412 metric ton WTO tariff rate quota for cheese to the EU. This reallocation further restricts the limited access that U.S. cheese exporters have into the Canadian market.

“Canada added insult to injury by not only impairing the quality of the cheese market access U.S. exporters expect to gain through ongoing Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, but also moving to water down the small access they currently offer to U.S. exporters through Canada’s WTO quota,” said Jaime Castaneda, senior vice president for the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) and the U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC). “This is yet another example of Canada’s work at every turn to limit access into its market for highly competitive U.S. products.”

Source: DairyHerd

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Así lo expresó Domingo Possetto, secretario de la seccional Rafaela, quien además, afirmó que a los productores «habitualmente los ignoran los gobiernos». Además, reconoció la labor de los empresarios de las firmas locales y aseguró que están «esperanzados» con la negociación entre SanCor y Adecoagro.

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