The EU expects US to remove “fully and promptly” the duties on Spanish olives

7 months ago 30

The World Trade Organisation confirmed that the anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties imposed by the US on ripe olives from Spain are not consistent with international trade rules and the EU expects Washington to take action to comply, with limited “scope for compromise”, an EU Commission note seen by Euractiv stated.

On Tuesday (20 February) the WTO made public a report confirming the 2022 dispute settlement body’s conclusion on the non-compliance of the US trade measures against olives from Spain.

“If adopted, the report will become binding between the EU and the US, and the US will have to take immediate action to implement the ruling and remove the duties”, a European Commission spokesperson said.

The WTO panel refrained from recommending that the United States cease to impose the illegal duties, as requested by the EU, because “the Panel does not have the ability to make specific recommendations in this way”, the report said.

The US also has the chance to appeal, but currently, there is not a functioning WTO appellate body in place because the Trump administration blocked the appointments to the body. The US appeal would be “into the void”, according to WTO jargon.

But here things become less clear. “The appeal into the void, according to the WTO rules, can block the panel report and all the settlement procedure”, Philippe Musquar, a lecturer at Science Po Lille and the Cattolica University of Milan, told Euractiv.

“But in order to tackle the WTO appeal body blockage,” Musquar added, “the EU has already in place rules allowing the block to retaliate even if the adjudication process is not complete”.

To that aim, in 2021 the EU revised the Regulation on the enforcement of the international trade rules.

The EU and the US might also reach an agreement on a compromise.

But the EU considers that “after more than five years of countervailing duties against the Spanish olive producers, despite a WTO ruling confirming their illegality […], there is not much scope for compromise”, a Commission note circulated yesterday and seen by Euractiv stated.

The EU expects “the US to fully and promptly implement the WTO ruling and remove the duties, as the only satisfactory avenue for the resolution of this dispute”, the document added.

According to data from the European Commission, before the duties were imposed, in 2017, Spain was an export leader of ripe olives to the US.

“Imports of Spanish origin were worth $67 million, or 76% of ripe olive imports to the US. By 2022, the value of Spanish exports to the United States had fallen to just USD 20 million, or 26% of US imports”, the EU executive underlined.

Reactions

The WTO panel report “is once again a clear and total victory for the EU”, the EU Commission commented.

The report shows “once again” that “the United States, the champion of free trade, adopts absolutely illegal protectionist measures when someone is more competitive than them”, said Socialist MEPs Clara Aguilera, a member of the European Parliament’s Agriculture Committee.

Another Spanish socialist MEP, Inmaculada Rodríguez-Piñero, a member of the Trade Committee, stressed that “In the European Union, we have always believed in trade based on rules, and that is why we appealed to the WTO in the face of unfair tariffs imposed by the US”.

[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]