The EU first agreed to consider beginning talks four years ago but it has been a long and tortuous process to get much further and negotiators remained in the starter’s block.
Progress has not been helped by a popular backlash in the EU against free trade and globalisation more generally.
A massive deal with Canada was almost tipped up in 2016 when legislators from the Belgian province of Wallonia threatened to withhold support.
In May last year the European Court of Justice put the EU’s trade agenda back on track when it ruled agreements can be ratified without having to go back to national and regional parliaments in the bloc’s 28 member states for all but a narrow range of issues.
Instead, agreements will be signed off by the European Council, representing member state governments and the European Parliament.
On Wednesday NZ and Australia will become the first countries to be considered for new negotiations since the ECJ’s landmark ruling.
The antipodean pairing are two of only six World Trade Organisation members not to have or be in negotiations for preferential trade agreements with the EU.
Trade sources last week were confident EU ministers will give negotiators the green light to finally begin formal talks with NZ.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s visit to European capitals last month is understood to have shored up support for at least beginning negotiations.
While no trade negotiations are easy the NZ side is digging in for a tough fight once talks begin.
A draft of the EU’s negotiating objectives from September last year said the talks should aim to dismantle tariffs on goods trade having equal effect on both sides and as a general rule take not more than seven years.
But for sensitive agricultural goods longer transitional periods or other arrangements should be considered.
It seems likely EU negotiators will seek to classify beef as sensitive and deserving of special protection.
Breaking open access to European beef markets has been a top priority in recent years for the United States, Canada and South American trading bloc Mercosur but has run into fierce opposition from Irish and French farmers in particular who claim caving in to such demands will undermine local food standards and devastate farming communities.
NZ will be seeking to improve on access to what is a lucrative but extremely protected market.
While returns at $14.21/kg in the year to September 2015 were nearly double the average return of $7.39/kg for all other beef markets, exporters were limited in their ability to take advantage of higher returns by annual quota of just 1300 tonnes, which also incurred a 20% tariff.
In its most recent trade deals Brussels has pushed hard for protections for food names with links to European places such as Parma ham or Feta cheese.
One insider said while NZ will be reluctant to trade away the rights of its own food producers to use the names they did give its negotiators some leverage.
“They have a range of offensive interests that they want to progress and if they want those things satisfied they will have to satisfy us as well.”
Further headwinds could also come in the form of complications arising from Brexit talks.
The EU and Britain are at loggerheads negotiating the terms on which they will trade with each other after the latter’s scheduled departure from the single market at the end of 2020.
If no agreement can be reached both sides will face the same high tariffs as other countries without preferential trade agreements with the EU and UK face in selling there now.
EU farm exports previously bound for the UK will be trapped in its domestic market.
Farmers Weekly’s insider describes this as the “disaster scenario” resulting in a backlash against countries seeking new access to the EU market.
“We would still have our EU rights of course for current access but new access would be really hard to negotiate.”
