A View on EuroMed Agricultural Trade Liberalization

1
A View on EuroMed Agricultural Trade
Liberalization
ENARPRI, Conference on  Trade agreements EU
Agriculture  8th June 2006, Brussels
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Some Intermediate Results

• EU-MED Agpol, 2004-2007 FP6 project Impacts of
  agricultural trade liberalization in the
  Mediterranean region on European countries.
• Intermediate results that may help to answer the
  following questions
• How do the current agreements affect Southern EU
  Countries ?
• How much the liberalization with Med Partners
  countries will/could affect the EU countries?

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How do current agreements affect Southern EU
countries ?

• The EU Imports from MPC are mainly concentrated
  on fruits, vegetables and olive oil
• 75 of EU Imports from MPC are fruits veg, and
  olive oil. (95of these imports come from 5
  countries Morocco, Turkey, Egypt, Israel,
  Tunisia)
• Globally imports from MPC/ total EU imports is
  not important (19 for the fruits and veg trade),
  but locally and for some products it is more
  significant
• Fruit and veg account for 25 of the
  agricultural production value in the southern EU
  countries
• Most of the fruits and veg that are produced in
  southern EU countries and MPC are the same
• Most of the MPC Imports are currently under
  EU-MED Agreements.

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Do the imports from Med countries compete with
southern EU countries production ?
Sources COMTRADE, FAO
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Do the EU-MED agreements have an impact on trade
?

• This table gives the proportion of tariff lines
  and volumes of trade covered by the bilateral
  EU-med agreements.
• The situation varies much from country to country
  . Generally the share of tariff lines is small,
  whereas that of trade is high, meaning that most
  of the trade is under EU-MED Bilateral agreements
  (with TRQ or without Quota)

Sources Meditar (Gallezot-Chevassus, 2006 )for
tariffs, and Comext for trade
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How much the liberalization with Med Partners
Countries will/would affect the EU countries?

• FIRST QUESTION What could be the increase of
  the Med countries export to the EU in case of
  Liberalization ?
• We selected countries and products
• We Built Liberalization scenarios
• Partial Lib increase in quotas, in windows and
  reduction in tariffs (consistent with the EuroMed
  negociations road map)
• Full Liberalization remove quotas, tariffs and
  entry prices
• We conducted experts surveys about the potential
  and the constraints.
• SECOND QUESTION What could be the impact of
  this increase on the EU southern countries ?
• Models can help to have regional EU impacts We
  will use CAPRI.
• But models arent sufficient to capture the
  economic environment that makes the strengths and
  weaknesses of regions

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Selected countries and products
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Expert surveys results Potential Increases in
EU Imports from Med countries under Partial and
Full Lib. Scenarios
Source EU-MED Agpol project, D21
9
Increases in EU Imports from selected Med
countries compared to Southern EU Production
Partial Lib.
Source EU-MED Agpol project, D21
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Regional Vulnerability Index and Per Capita GDP
30,000
Emilia-Romagna
Trentino
Piemonte
Rhône-Alpes
Lazio
25,000
Veneto
Liguria
Toscana
PACA
Pays Loire
Midi-Pyrénées
GDP per capita ()
Bretagne
Cataluna
20,000
Average 30 regions
Languedoc-Roussillon
Aragon
Valencia
Sterea Ellias
Puglia
15,000
Sicilia
Castilla la Mancha
Murcia
Calabria
Campania
Andalucia
Alentejo-Algarve
Ipiros-Peloponissos
Thessalia
10,000
Norte-Douro
Centro-Ribatejo
Anatoliki Makedonia
5,000
1,00
2,00
3,00
4,00
5,00
6,00
7,00
8,00
9,00
10,00
RVI
Source EU-MED Agpol, Rastoin- Montigaud 2006
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Other issues

• WTO agreement Erosion of Preferences ?
• FDI in Mediterranean countries the surveys
  indicate a movement towards an increase of FDI in
  the Fruit and Veg in some countries (Morocco,
  Tunisia, Turkey) .
• The Non-tariff barriers (quality standard) appear
  as a constraint for some product/countries
  (Turkey, Egypt) but not for all of them (Morocco,
  Israel)