UK imports from extra-EU partners for selected agricultural sectors and share of UK imports in total EU imports from non-EU countries for those agricultural sectors (2017)

While the UK, as all EU Member States, is a member of the WTO in its own right, its schedule of commitments within the WTO is currently tied to the EU schedule as a result of the EU customs union. Although for ad valorem tariffs, this does not seem to be a problematic issue, in the sense that the EU tariff bindings can simply be ‘copied and pasted’ by the UK into its new separate tariff schedule, this is not so easy for tariff rate quotas limiting market access in agricultural goods. Quotas are set to satisfy the demand of 28 EU Member States and would thus be disproportionate for a single country. Therefore, as a consequence of Brexit, the UK will have to modify its bindings in the WTO. Considering that the UK is one of the major EU importers of agricultural goods and that UK import demand was taken into account when the EU first negotiated its own bindings, the EU also wishes to adapt its quotas for a reduced post-Brexit EU-27. Figure 6 shows the percentage of UK imports in total EU imports from non EU countries for selected agricultural sectors.