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IRELAND’S AGRICULTURE MINISTER has said that a trade deal between the EU and Japan offers a “huge opportunity” for Irish beef farmers.
Michael Creed says that 43,500 tonnes of Irish beef going to Japan will see tariffs dropping from 38.5% to 27.5% in the first year and then to 9% over a fifteen years.
The deal will see Tokyo scrapping barriers to EU farming products and in return the EU will further open its market to the world-leading Japanese auto industry.
The breakthrough capped four years of talks and came on the eve of a G20 meeting in Germany tomorrow.
Despite top EU politicians welcoming the deal, there is opposition to so-called investment courts which opponents argue are undemocratic and will be a boon for multinationals.
The courts are designed to resolve trade disputes.
The EU and Japanese economies combined account for more than a quarter of global output, making the deal one of the biggest trade pacts ever attempted.
With the deal, the EU is seeking access to one of the world’s richest markets while Japan hopes to jump-start an economy that has struggled to find solid growth for more than decade.
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“The concessions achieved in relation to beef are particularly significant, and represent a huge opportunity which I am determined will be utilised to the maximum possible extent by the Irish beef sector,” Creed said this morning.
But the outcome is also extremely positive in relation to pigmeat, where Japan will significantly lower the tariffs applied through its import scheme over the period of the agreement, and for cheese and dairy products.
We did it. We concluded EU-Japan political and trade talks. EU is more and more engaged globally. Global Europe! pic.twitter.com/GhsRT2QihH
The deal is also being seen as a rebuke to US President Donald Trump who has been a proponent of trade protectionism and an opponent of globalisation.
While agreements have been signed, some work remains to be done before it is competed.
It is being described as a “political agreement” and some of the accord’s toughest aspects have been left aside and could still prove difficult.
Sinn Féin MEP Matt Carthy argues that full details of the proposed EU investment courts must be debated in the Dáil.
“The commission seems intent on establishing this multilateral court without any democratic mandate,” he said.
There has yet to be a Dáil debate on this provision despite the dangerous and serious implications such a court will have for Irish democratic and judicial structures.
Greenpeace is also opposed to the deal, describing it as “corporate protectionism”.
Last year, the EU’s giant CETA trade deal with Canada nearly sank on such concerns when the small Belgian region of Wallonia threatened to veto it, before eventually relenting.
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VRT is different to VAT….It is percentage of retail selling price of car….Charged at importation….It is not charged in other EU countries….Against the single market as it is charged on all imported cars….Even ones made in the EU….
@John003: we are not supposed to be happy Citizens, we are meant to struggle, keeps us occupied trying to survive & if we could afford nicer cars we’d get rebellious & demand things for our Tax payments
@John003: vast majority of Toyota cars that are sold in Ireland and Europe are manufactured in Europe. No tariffs on those cars as a result as it stands. Same applies to
Hyundai and others.
There is free movement of capital, it’s just the Irish govenrment decides to put taxes here and everywhere. Elect a tax cutting Irish party if you want to change things.
I’m glad it’s good news for our farmers, and I hope they do well from it. But I wouldn’t hold my breath for cheaper cars as our greedy government will still charge the VRT
@Míleata Watch Co: If our “greedy” Govt didn’t charge VRT they would have to raise the revenue elsewhere. Public services need to be provided. There is no such thing as a free lunch. So you either pay it on cars or pay it on direct taxation or something equivalent.
Eu deals are only good for Ireland when the eu isn’t screwing ireland. Our Irish politicians couldn’t do deals on penny sweets if they tried, they much prefer the easier option of just raising taxes!
Even the FF, FG deal in our current gov is calamatous. FG are shambolic in gov, FF could have and should have brought down this gov over many issues already, threatened to do so many times while supposedly in opposition, haven’t done so. The whole setup is a joke.
Trust the Sinners to complain about good news. Bad day for Britain though. If the UK fails to get a free trade deal with Japan, you can say sayonara to Nissan etc who have car plants across Britain.
Irish should be trading with more countries outside the EU. We have dome great products which could be traded for great products in other countries. Selling cheap food to the EU is the height of our ambitions.
@Brendan Keegan: We don’t sell “cheap” food to the EU and in fact the EU subsidises our agricultural market. If we want to sell food outside the EU we can and we do but we have to do it at the world price which is typically much lower. Ireland has a large export trade outside the EU. In fact we are one of the most open economies in the entire world. Only a country of idiots would not seek to sell to the consumers on their doorsteps in one of the richest markets in the world – the EU. But Ireland sells many goods and services outside of the EU.
@John R: in fact we subsidise our agri business by letting the rest of eu fish our waters . We be better off we subsidised our agri business from our original fisheries . We are been screwed. At the very least threy could have force all catches in irish waters to be processed in ireland. Shambles
And wasn’t there a major beef deal with the US announced recently? Great for Irish faming and perfect timing with Brexit around the corner, need more diversificaton of markets.
@Francis Devenney: The market of 400 million does not disappear you know. There may be tariffs to pay, but the ability to control your own currency can negate those.
@Paul Fahey: I’m not talking about what we sell I talking about the clout we would have at the table When we say “We have nearly a million drivers, now most of them hang on to their cars for ages and a lot wont necessarily buy your cars but we should be able to shift a thousand a year….Now about that 43,500 of beef”
“the ability to control your own currency can negate those.”
Yes, we’ll have the ability to control our own currency. Which will, of course, by worth approximately nothing after we leave the EU. Who needs international trade? Look at North Korea, they’ve got a space programme so they must be doing pretty well.
@De Mad Hoor: “Ireland would be better off making its own deals.” No it wouldn’t as the UK is about to discover. Trade deals take years to make and require an expertise that most countries now lack. Economic blocs are now the dominant trading paradigm. Trying to make your way outside of those blocs is extremely difficult especially for small countries. We have nothing equivalent in market share to offer them and would always be at the back of the queue.
One thing of note here. This deal took 4 years to reach this point and even now it is just a “political agreement”.
And people believe Brexit will happen in just 2 years! Impossible.
The EU does a trade deal with major world economy – sounds like a template for a deal with the UK – half the population of Japan but in far more proximity to the EU
First there was GATT and then that became WTO and tariffs before 1947 were 22% on goods. They have been doing this since 1947 and it seemed that the World Bank and the IMF caused GATT to turn into the WTO which in turn you could say created the Euro and the EU from the EEC. The WTO became the bouncer / bodyguard for the EU but seemed to work for the IMF and World Bank instead?
My 9:13pm post in http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/we-need-to-talk-about-brexit-and-cause-of-political-extremes-3196402-Jan2017/ might add clarity…
Everyone wants free trade and all they seem to and everyone really want to do is to keep creating new and newer laws to add onto older laws rather than just scrapping everything? Some will argue that GATT and the WTO created more barriers to trade and if anyone says no to that then just look at Brexit and compare that atmosphere and the talks around that?
The fact is with CETA, the small business, the self employed and the small farmer will be squeezed out of the markets by competition because as goods get cheaper then only the large businesses will be able to sell at low cost then but no one is saying that?
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