EU agriculture commissioner Phil Hogan confirmed that beef will not form part of the trade deal, being negotiated between the Mercosur bloc of South American states (including Brazil and Argentina) and the EU.

With momentum building towards the referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU next month, Commissioner Hogan said negotiations on South American beef would be withdrawn from the trade deal at a meeting held by NFU Cymru in the Vale of Glamorgan on Tuesday. Farmers across the EU had feared that, if negotiators agreed to allow more beef to be imported from South America without high trade tariffs, the extra imports would undercut domestic production. Mercosur is already a major exporter of farm commodities to the EU, accounting for 86% of beef imports into the bloc.

News of the removal of beef from the deal came at the eleventh hour, as chief negotiators from the two Blocs met in Brussels on Wednesday, to deliver the first exchange of offers since 2004.  

Following the meeting, which also dealt with the amount of bureaucracy faced by farmers under the reformed Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the ongoing impacts of the price crisis on dairying, NFU Cymru President, Stephen James said, “Today’s announcement from Commissioner Hogan is reassuring for the Welsh beef sector. NFU Cymru has had major concerns with regard to the impact that nearly 80,000 tonnes of additional non-tariff beef would have on beef prices across the EU.

“In Wales we pride ourselves on the production of high quality beef produced to world leading standards and we were concerned that this was going to be undermined by a flood of imports that may not have been produced to the same standards.”

Even so, on Wednesday EU farm group Copa and Cogeca stated its opposition to the EU position and warned that the deal will open up the EU’s markets to imports without getting much in return.

After the negotiations, Copa & Cogeca Secretary-General Pekka Pesonen said, “Despite warnings from 20 EU Ministers against making an offer on agriculture which includes sensitive agriculture products in the free trade talks, the Commission has gone ahead with the move. Some changes were made to the EU’s initial offer but it’s not enough for us”.

Pesonen also said the Commission had failed to carry out an impact assessment on its plans and claimed that the EU’s agricultural sector stands to lose 7 billion euros from such a deal.