EU/Thailand Agreement: modification of concessions on all the tariff-rate quotas included in the EU Schedule CLXXV as a consequence of the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union

2021/0003(NLE)

The European Parliament adopted by 638 votes to 49, with 6 abstentions, a legislative resolution on the draft Council decision on the conclusion of the agreement between the European Union and the Kingdom of Thailand pursuant to Article XXVIII of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) 1994 relating to the modification of concessions on all the tariff-rate quotas included in the EU Schedule CLXXV as a consequence of the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union.

Following the recommendation of the Committee on International Trade, Parliament gave its consent to the conclusion of the agreement.

As a reminder, the EU formally launched the negotiation process (under Article XXVIII of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) 1994) with several WTO members in Geneva in October 2018.

The negotiations are based on a ‘joint approach’ developed in 2017 by the EU and the UK 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 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 allocation method is described in detail in Regulation (EU) 2019/216 of the European Parliament and of the Council.

On 15 June 2018, the Council authorised the Commission to launch GATT Article XXVIII negotiations with the WTO Members concerned with a view to apportioning the Union's WTO tariff quota concessions.

Negotiations with Thailand resulted in an agreement which was initialled on 7 January 2021 in Geneva.