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New deal could boost EU agri exports, says report
[ April 25, 2024 // Chris Lewis ]A veterinary deal with the European Union could increase UK agricultural and food exports by over a fifth, according to a report by academics.
The team, from Aston University’s Centre for Business Prosperity and the University of Bristol, analysed the agricultural and veterinary aspects of trade deals around the world to estimate their impact on exports and then modelled the potential impact of different types of agreement on UK exports to the EU.
The EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA), implemented in January 2021, eliminates tariffs and quotas but does not remove non-tariff barriers to trade. These can be particularly burdensome for agricultural and animal-derived food exports, as they involve complex rules and requirements, extensive documentation and veterinary checks.
The UK agri-food sector is a cornerstone of the UK economy, with exports worth £25 billion and employing 4.2million people. Although the sector is growing overall, exports to the EU shrank in 2022 by 5% compared to 2019, in part due to the new trade arrangements. This has led to
Organisations including the Confederation of British Industry, British Chambers of Commerce, UK Food and Drink Federation, Chartered Institute of Environmental Health and British Veterinary Association have called for an EU–UK veterinary agreement.
Analysing data from the World Bank on 279 trade agreements and export statistics from over 200 countries, the researchers found that shallow agreements, that went little further than provisions already covered by World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, hampered agri-food exports but those that went beyond WTO provisions to include more commitments on sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures and were legally enforceable, had a positive impact on exports of animal products and food.
The team estimated that a veterinary agreement that went beyond the existing TCA provisions would increase agri-food exports from the UK to the EU by at least 22.5%. Imports from the EU would also increase by 5.6%.
While deals took between 10 and 15 years to manifest, the UK might not have to wait so long, according to report co-author Professor Jun Du, Director of Aston University’s Centre for Business Prosperity who said: “There is no blueprint out there that mirrors the UK–EU relationship. Most veterinary agreements are agreed as part of a trade deal between countries that haven’t previously had close alignment and it takes a while for the benefits to take effect.
“Until recently, the UK had frictionless agri-food exports to the EU, so it’s possible that a supplementary veterinary agreement to reduce some of the frictions created by Brexit could allow trade that previously existed to pick up again quite quickly.”
However legal and political barriers remain. The researchers suggest that the best format for the additional measures would be as a supplementary agreement to the TCA. The key question for the UK government would be what the EU demanded in return.
“The closest model is the EU-Swiss relationship, which sees Switzerland largely follow EU law,” said report co-author from the University of Bristol, Dr Greg Messenger. “That’s unlikely to be an option for the UK. As we wouldn’t expect to eliminate all paperwork, we could both agree that our rules meet each other’s standard for phytosanitary protection. As most of our rules are still essentially the same as the EU, that wouldn’t require any major change, though we’d have to agree a greater level of coordination in relation to the development of new rules.”
Tags: Aston University; University of Bristol