On 26 October, the Council of the European Union adopted a measure that will apply a reduction, or elimination, of tariffs, beginning on 1 January and running through 31 December, 2012.
According to the council, in the last 10 years the EU self-sufficiency rate for seafood products has dropped significantly, from 57 percent to 36 percent.
“It is in the community's interest to suspend in part or in whole the customs duties for those products, within community tariff quotas of an appropriate volume,” said the council, which comprises EU heads of state and the European Commission president to define the EU’s general political guidelines.
Mindful of ensuring an “adequate supply” of seafood products to the EU processing industry, the tariff quotas “should be opened in accordance with the sensitivity of the product in question on the community market,” added the council.
Seafood products cited by the council that fall under the tariff quota umbrella include cured herring in brine, preserved in barrels of at least 70 kilograms; frozen surimi for processing; and minced and frozen hake fillets destined for processing.
In 1993, the council laid down a rule to provide a mechanism — a system of tariff quota management — that can anticipate the reduction or elimination of duties.
When the new regulation takes effect at the beginning of next year, it will repeal the current Regulation EC 824/2007.
