Changes from report parliamentary committee draft to plenary report

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.

The principle of the applied methodology is based on the trade flows into the EU27 and the UK during a representative reference period of 3 years (from 2013 to 2015) for all WTO TRQs. The agreed methodology of the apportionment is described in detail in Regulation (EU) 2019/216 of the European Parliament and of the Council. More specifically, Article 2(b) of this Regulation empowers the Commission to amend the apportionment shares taking into account pertinent information that it may receive either in the context of negotiations under Article XXVIII of GATT 1994 or from other sources with an interest in a specific tariff rate quota.

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).

In accordance with Article 218(6) TFEU, the consent of the European Parliament is needed in order for the Council to adopt a decision concluding the Agreement and for the latter to come into force in due time.

In the light of the above, the Rapporteur recommends that the Parliament give its consent to the conclusion of the Agreement, without prejudice to its democratic right of continuous scrutiny.