The Diplomat
The Spanish government has asked the European Commission to take the United States back to the World Trade Organization (WTO) after U.S. authorities used a recent court ruling to renege on their commitment to lift tariffs on Spanish black olives.
In August 2018, the United States imposed tariffs of 35% on black olives from Spain on the grounds that Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) subsidies to the Spanish black olive sector were illegal and represented “unfair competition”. The measure has had a very negative impact on Spanish exports to the US that has resulted, according to the Spanish employers’ association of the sector, in losses of up to 170 million euros.
In January 2019, the European Commission, at the request of the Spanish Government, decided to request consultations with the USA before the World Trade Organization. Because these consultations were unsuccessful, in May of that year the EU requested the World Trade Organization to create a panel to investigate the anti-dumping and anti-subsidy measures imposed by the United States. Despite Washington’s blockade, the WTO established a panel in June of the same year to study the matter.
Finally, in November 2021, the WTO made public the Panel’s Final Report, which ruled that the US measures are “inconsistent” with the WTO’s own rules and urged, therefore, Washington to eliminate the levies imposed by the then Donald Trump Administration against Spanish black olives. As a result of this ruling, the United States made a commitment to the EU to bring its legislation into line by January 14, 2023. Despite this, a U.S. court last September again questioned the EU’s agricultural support and ruled last September in favor of imposing the tariff on Spanish black olives.
“We are concerned about the reading made by the US Administration, which does not seem to us adequate with the ruling of the WTO Panel in relation to the black table olive,” said yesterday the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Luis Planas, on his arrival at the meeting of the Council of Agriculture and Fisheries of the European Union, in Brussels.
“We had hoped that the decision of the United States to acquiesce to the Panel’s ruling would mean a prompt and effective modification of its legislation”, but “this has not been the case and, therefore, we are urging the European Commission so that, as soon as possible, it has to take the United States back to the WTO to solve an issue that lasts too long and harms our exporters of table olives,” he added.
