Paolo GARZOTTI

Policy topics Paolo GARZOTTI is active on

What Paolo GARZOTTI has said (4)

• “Thank you chairperson Mister Cassart, I don't know what you're told by Brazilian experts. In the agreement, there is the possibility to impose safeguard mechanisms. They can impose them on us and we can do it for them. What we're doing here is to say that if there are certain conditions, the Commission will initiate investigations for the safeguard and will respond within four months. We've looked at things that are against the agreement. If something is against the agreement, we have to go to the dispute resolution in the agreement. The system of nonviolation has nothing to do with that. It's for situations where the measure is not foreseen. You have a measure that is within the agreement; it is not the same as the specific FN level. None of that could be the subject of nonviolation. If it is considered that something goes against the agreement in the countries where the rule of law is applied, then it's applied. I don't know who that Brazilian expert was, but he's wrong.”
  EU Supervision of the Rule of Law · Free trade agreements (FTAs)
• “No, that's exactly what we control there now. Mister Villaud said that we cannot control that. I'm not aware of that. The Commission sends people going there every year to check whether these slaughterhouses that are allowed to export to the European Union do actually comply with our regulations. When they're not, they're banned from exporting to the European Union, which is not a minor reputational and economic thing. I give you just the example: we had cases, of course, when this happened—the Carne Fraca scandal in Brazil in 2018. They stopped; they're still under enforced enhanced controls because of what they've done seven years ago. So I wouldn't see the interest in doing this, first of all. Second, this is what we do. We send people there every year. We have a list that is public of on-spot controls in these countries to check that they don't use antibiotics. Exactly because, as rightly said by the honorable members, by law at the border you cannot check. If you treat with hormones six months before, there's no hormones left, and the same with antibiotics. That's why we go there and we check. I assume that this is sufficient. This is what our legislation comprises. Again, what I'm saying: the Mercosur agreement does not limit or lower or tamper with this. This will actually be, according to what is said in our vision for agriculture, increased and become tighter in the future. This is what the Commissioner's problem is in the vision for agriculture, not less important.”
  Trade relations with Mercosur · Import of agri-food products in the EU
• “To the point made by Miss Valerian, sorry, I thought your question was rhetorical, so I didn't reply because I thought it was not meant. But I'm not known for avoiding replying to questions. Actually, there are two points. We are talking about how we guarantee that they adopt the same production standards. These countries are bound to adopt production standards of the European Union in those fields where we do impose them. As you know, they don't have to adopt production standards across the board; we do impose them. So almonds, antibiotics, antinicotinoids, deforestation clauses on that, the European Union, the Commission has in place all of the necessary tools in order to control the respect of these measures. We had in this group our expert and our colleagues from DG Sanco to make sure that we were explained in detail all of this. We have, for example, for antibiotics and hormones, specific filials that have to be controlled by our expert in situ. Only exporters that comply with those requirements can export. If they are caught cheating, they can be submitted to limitations to their export for years. And that's what happened on several occasions. So yes, it can be imposed and it can be paused. When I'm talking about those production methods, in particular those elements related to sanitary and phytosanitary controls, if that was not the case, we should be worried already now. Because as you know, take beef: we import already two hundred thousand tons of beef. What we do with this agreement is just allow ninety thousand tons to come in and reduce duty. That is not a threat. The threat should be ready or there, but already all of the imports that we are giving now, coming from these countries of any kind, are subject to our control and are caught at the border. So if you don't think, as I assume you are, that our inspectors and our experts do a good job in tracking them, okay, I respect your position. But we got legislation in place and this applies already now. There's nothing in this agreement that changes the sanitary or phytosanitary controls or the controls on hormones and antibiotics compared to what was the situation before. That's my point. So if there's a problem, surely it does not come from disagreement. We simply create for some products, as I said, additional market access.”
  Free trade agreements (FTAs)
• “Thank you chairperson thanks a lot for inviting us here to explain. Indeed, what you said in your introductory remarks, the Commission promised that it would have come with a special new proposal for operationalizing the provisions of the bilateral safeguard clause of the EU Mercosur agreement and this is what we've done indeed on the eighth of October. This new regulation offers in our view a full and comprehensive protection for the EU sensitivities in the agricultural sectors, addressing the concerns that particularly the agricultural constituencies had on the instrument of safeguard. I will focus my presentation on the specific aspect of the regulation assuming the honorable members do know how the safeguard regulation generally applies. As a preliminary remark, I want to say that this regulation is a kind of a Frankenstein regulation where we have taken the basic regulation that we use for bilateral agreements, we pegged into it the special provisions that we had in the agreement and on top of that we added the special disciplines that we have specifically devised for the Mercosur agreement. So it's a three layers regulation. For those honorable members that would wish, I can provide the text with exactly identified which part belongs to the old regulations, which are new and which belong to the agreement. Now, what were the problems that the farming, the interest of the stakeholders saw in the safeguard regulation? Normally, the one that we normally use fundamentally, there were two: too slow in order to enter and too difficult to move into motion. What we've done here is again a two layer intervention: increased monitoring and enhanced safeguard. In terms of increased monitoring, the Commission will monitor closely the market and assess rapidly the market situation so that will allow us to identify the risks ahead of time and to react swiftly if needed. We will work in full transparency and send to you and to the Council, to the European Parliament of the Council, a twice a year monitoring report on what we have looked on the ground in the market. This report will cover the Union market but also the situation in one or several member states specifically that might be particularly sensitive to a particular product. I say then in the second after the monitoring is the enhanced safeguards. I told you too complex and too slow to provide remedies. So the future regulations lays down procedure to guarantee the timely and effective implementation of bilateral safeguards and measures, included specific provisions as regard sensitive agricultural products. So the special rules, what products are concerned? The products that we covered are the products that are subject to tariff quota under the agreement. This by the simple fact that we're subject to tariff quota necessarily we consider that are sensitive but we have included in the regulation the possibility for the Commission to adopt delegated acts, so with a quick procedure to either add the products if there were products that we did were not on the quota and where we see emerging sensitivities while that agreement applies or to delete products if there are products that we see there's no after several years of control we see that there's no reason to be worried about it. Second special element that we apply to this group of sensitive product is a big novelty as a quasi automatic trigger to initiate the investigation. So the agriculture stakeholder were saying this is too complex for us, it's an instrument that is good for an organized industrial constituency but for a fragmented agri constituency is not good. So what we've done is we limited to very basic information what is needed in order to trigger an initiation investigation which is fundamentally to prove that the sensitive products, the common on preferential terms, are at least ten percent below the average EU domestic price. So that the Mercosur exports under preferential trade, they undercut our products by ten percent. If that is the case, if the price has decreased by ten percent over the same year or if the goods and the preferential trade have increased by ten percent, something incidentally the second criteria that will naturally and mathematically be filled as the agreement entered into force because for the time being there's no preferential trade in that moment at that moment in time, the Commission will have to start an investigation unless we found in the Commission clear control reasons to do so. But normally basically the burden of proof would be on the Commission to demonstrate that normally if this is proven we will initiate as a rule an investigation. The other criticism that we received was you are too slow. By the time the measures are in force the damage is already made done. So what we have done is to give the Commission first of all the obligation to initiate without delay which is in normal cases a month. Instead we said without delay, so as quick as possible to conclude the investigation within four months, normally it's nine months or more in discussion with investigation. And most importantly the possibility to impose actually the duty for the Commission to impose safeguard measures in cases in the typical critical circumstances where the damage would be difficult to repair. So the so called provisional safeguard measures within three weeks, so in twenty one days to be able to impose measures to stop import. So quasi automatic initiation, in four weeks the investigation is gonna be over but in three weeks we're gonna have already measures provisionally applied if the circumstances are required. Last point, what are the remedies that this safeguards provide? Is go back to the status quo like the agreement it was not bad at the very maximum. So we can either temporary suspension the schedule of tariff reduction. So I give you an example of the quota, first installment of quota ten thousand tons come in, we stop there, we don't continue the implementation of the agreement and we survey how this proceed or we can even go back fully to the MFN close to MFN treatment, so to totally suspend the possibility to export under trade preferences that particular product. These safeguard measures will remain in force for two years, they can be extended for another two years, so overall they can remain in place for four years. What we have done here is basically to take the safeguard, the possibility to start safeguard investigation to the very limit of what we agreed with the Mercosur partners. So it's in line and fully consistent with the agreement and this is not only a legal requirement but also a question of EU's credibility as a trade partner vis a vis Mercosur and other partners that have deal with. That we have to maintain consistency. But as I said, we've gone to the very limit of the policy space that we had in order to make sure that for these particular sensitive products that have been highlighted as by our agricultural stakeholders and by you in several meetings that we had, they were fully and duly protected in a nimble, simple and quick fashion. Now we have in the Commission of course worked out to get this ready as soon as possible. We are of course fully respectful of the time and the procedures of this house but clearly as soon as a message that this regulation, what is expressed in this regulation, is shared by the legislators, this would definitely help the process of explanation of this agreement to our constituencies because it's important that they are aware of the efforts that we are doing to protect the sensitive sectors in our agricultural trade. Thanks a lot chairman.”
  Trade relations with Mercosur · Free trade agreements (FTAs)