EU Issues Regulations on Adjustments to TRQs After Brexit

The European Union issued a notice in the March 11 Official Journal announcing adjustments to certain tariff-rate quotas for agricultural products that will take effect once the United Kingdom leaves the EU or a negotiated transition period ends. The new regulation also sets provisions on treatment of TRQ import licenses issued by U.K. customs authorities after Brexit, as well as how TRQs that have already opened and been partially used will be apportioned on the day the U.K. leaves.

The new TRQ regulations will apply from March 30 if the transition deal negotiated between the U.K. and the EU is not approved in the U.K. parliament and Brexit is not postponed. If the deal is approved, the regulations will apply from the end of the negotiated transition period.

According to the notice, “rights and obligations deriving from import licenses issued and import rights allocated” by U.K. authorities on the agricultural TRQs will expire once the U.K’s exit takes effect or the transition period ends. Rights from import licenses issued by other EU member states will remain valid, except where the licenses are transferred to operators in the U.K., in which case they will also expire at that point.

For TRQs with a quota period that began before Brexit, “the apportionment of the tariff rate quota concerned shall be made by applying the EU-27 [i.e., non-U.K.] percentage to the quantities of that tariff rate quota available after the last allocation.” That’s in line with regulations issued by the EU in early February that apportioned TRQs between the EU and the U.K. based on their respective usage in the EU and U.K. over a three-year period before Brexit.

The EU will publish the quantities available for each of these TRQs within two working days after a no-deal Brexit, or within two days of when the transition period ends if the deal is approved, the regulation says.

The notice also includes adjustments to TRQ apportionments between the EU and U.K. from the quantities listed in the EU’s Feb. 8 regulation. Many of the quota quantities remain the same, but any that are different replace the quantities in the earlier notice, the EU said.