John Clarke, director for international affairs at the European Commission’s directorate general (DG) for agriculture said: “We will have to reduce our tariffs in areas like meat.” He was speaking during a public debate on the TTIP organised by the Parliament Magazine in Brussels, noting that the EU meat sector was less competitive than America’s due to higher production costs related to animal welfare, environment and sanitary standards compliance.
But even if competition from US meat producers was fiercer once a TTIP was in place, higher production costs could be turned into an advantage for European producers on the US market, according to Clarke. “More sophisticated American consumers would want to buy food that has been produced respecting high standards,” he explained.
An Irish centre-right member of the European Parliament (MEP) Mairead McGuinness, who also spoke at the event, is concerned about the impact such concessions could have on Irish and European beef producers: “Somebody will have to make a call that will make many people unhappy,” she said.
But Clarke sought to reassure meat producers: “We should not be afraid of competition from the US; it will be at a manageable level and none of the two parties will want to destroy any farming sector,” he said.
He also made it clear there will be no agreement between the US and the EU on meat coming from livestock treated with hormones. “There is science in [the rejection by the EU of] hormone-fed beef and the EU society and parliaments will never accept it,” Clarke explained.
Another issue that will generate intense negotiations is related to animal welfare standards. “This is one of the issues where we don’t see eye to eye,” said Cynthia Iglesias Guven, senior agricultural attaché at the US mission to the EU, speaking at the same event.
The EU trade commissioner Karel de Gucht will meet US trade representative ambassador Michael Froman in Washington DC next week to discuss TTIP before a fourth round of negotiations takes place in Brussels between 10 and 14 March.