Recommendation on the draft Council decision on the conclusion, on behalf of the European Union, of the Agreement between the European Union and New Zealand pursuant to Article XXVIII of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) 1994 relating to the modification of concessions with respect to all tariff-rate quotas included in the EU Schedule CLXXV as a consequence of the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union

In the run-up to the UK's withdrawal from the European Union, the EU has formally opened negotiations under Article XXVIII of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) with several members of the World Trade Organization (WTO), including New Zealand. The principle underlying the negotiations is a “joint approach”, developed between the EU and the UK in 2017, on how to “apportion” the quantitative commitments contained in the WTO schedule for the EU-28 to the EU's 143 tariff quotas for agricultural, fishery and industrial products. This approach is based on fully maintaining the current volume of each tariff quota after the UK's withdrawal from the EU, albeit split between two separate customs territories: the EU-27 and the UK. The Group of the Greens welcomes the EU's approach of maintaining the overall levels of the EU-28 tariff quotas and understands the need to find adjustments to these WTO quotas as a result of Brexit. This is a technical operation aimed at dealing with the trade consequences of Brexit in a diplomatic and coordinated manner at WTO level and I therefore voted in favor of this agreement.

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