The European Union’s agriculture chief sounded an upbeat note about the imminent Brexit negotiations, predicting farm trade between the U.K. and the EU will remain tariff-free after Britain leaves the bloc in 2019.
European Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan said both sides may agree on a transitional arrangement that would apply from the moment Brexit takes place and that would ensure the status quo prevails in farm commerce until they can work out a free-trade agreement.
“I expect that there will be no change in any arrangement because there will probably be a transitional arrangement that people will be able to cope with,” Hogan, who is Ireland’s appointee to the European Commission, the 28-nation EU’s executive arm, said in an interview on Tuesday in Brussels.
Speaking a day before U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May is due to trigger two years of Brexit negotiations, he said talks on future f arm-trade relations between Britain and the EU won’t begin until “at least 2019.”
That’s because the initial focus of the Brexit deliberations will be on matters related to the EU budget, citizens’ rights and borders, making a transitional arrangement for agriculture necessary to buy time for a free-trade accord, Hogan said.
“I am personally in favor of a deep and comprehensive free-trade agreement between the U.K. and the EU to give certainty to both,” he said.
Hogan said both sides also need to agree on the British share of EU duty-free import quotas for farm goods such as New Zealand lamb.
“We have to now assess to know how these quotas are going to be managed, whether they are part of the United Kingdom or part of the European Union or both,” he said. On the question of New Zealand lamb, Hogan signaled it may be addressed in the context of planned negotiations that may start this year on a free-trade agreement between New Zealand and the EU.
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