Donal Denvir, Düsseldorf Office, Bord Bia – Irish Food Board
Following the UK’s rejection of the EU’s exit proposal, the German dairy industry fears substantial trading issues. This is according to German farming website, agrarheute.com.
Following the vote defeat of the British Prime Minister Theresa May in the House of Commons, and the de facto end to a regulated exit of the UK from the European Union, the German Dairy Industry Association (MIV) fears that the impending hard Brexit will cause enormous damage to the European dairy industry.
Agrarheute reports that MIV Chief Executive Eckhard Heuser today called on EU and UK representatives to exert the “greatest possible tolerance and willingness to resolve all attempts at agreement in the short-term” in order to mitigate the damage caused by the Brexit process.
Export losses feared
According to Heuser, much is at stake. He stated that the UK is a large net importer of milk and dairy products and buys a lot of dairy produce, especially from the Republic of Ireland. If, in a hard Brexit, the UK levies third-country duties on EU goods, product prices would have to be raised significantly.
Trade threatens to come to a standstill, warned the MIV Chief Executive. He also pointed out that the changed marketing streams could bring further market distortions. There is also a threat from the raw ‘milk pool’ in Northern Ireland, which is currently processed in the south of the Republic of Ireland.
More controls at the border
According to the German Dairy Industry Association, the administrative part of the process is not only threatened by high third-country tariffs, but added to this would be customs controls with a significant amount of time being spent at the border.
To this end, the two ex-partners, the EU and the UK, would initially treat each other as third countries in the exchange of goods and services, and would also introduce veterinary controls again. According to the MIV, a hard Brexit and the resulting trade issues were therefore likely to result in negative consequences that could barely be calculated for the European dairy industry.
Germany mainly exports cheese and yoghurt
The basic training for “In-House Milk Processing“ highlights legal and technical aspects of the production of dairy products.
Britain has only about 60 per cent self-sufficiency in agricultural products and food, relying heavily on deliveries from the EU single market.
For example, to secure food supplies for the British, the country imports annually around 500,000 tonnes of cheese and 400,000 tonnes of beef from other EU countries, according to the Upper Austrian Chamber of Agriculture.
According to AMI GmbH, German dairies export 73,000 tonnes of cheese, 84,000 tonnes of yoghurt and sour milk products and around 44,000 tonnes of flavoured milk drinks to the United Kingdom. In addition to this, there are exports of milk and cream, as well as milk powder and condensed milk.
Every year, German companies deliver agricultural goods and food worth around 4.5 billion euros to the British Isles. According to the German Farmers’ Association, Germany’s agricultural export surplus in respect of the UK amounts to around 3.5 billion euros. It is thus almost twice as large as the total value of exports to the United States.