The European Parliament adopted by 451 votes to 53, with 62 abstentions, a legislative resolution on the draft Council decision on the conclusion, on behalf of the Union, on the draft Council decision on the conclusion, on behalf of the Union, of the Agreement in the form of an Exchange of Letters between the European Union and the Commonwealth of Australia 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 allocate the quantitative commitments contained in the EU-28's WTO schedule for the EU's 143 WTO tariff-rate quotas for agricultural, fisheries and industrial products.
The principle of the applied methodology is based on the trade flows in the EU-27 and the UK over a representative reference period (of three years between 2013 and 2015) for all WTO tariff-rate quotas. The agreed methodology of the apportionment 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 negotiations under Article XXVIII GATT with the relevant WTO Members, including Australia, with a view to apportioning the Union's WTO concessions on tariff-rate quotas.
Australia has negotiating rights for 14 tariff quotas and consultation rights for 6 tariff quotas. Negotiations with Australia resulted in an agreement that was initialled on 18 December 2020 in Geneva.