𝕁𝕒𝕔𝕚𝕟𝕕𝕒 𝔸𝕣𝕕𝕖𝕣𝕟𝕤 𝕤𝕥𝕒𝕣-𝕡𝕠𝕨𝕖𝕣 𝕤𝕖𝕔𝕦𝕣𝕖𝕤 𝕙𝕚𝕤𝕥𝕠𝕣𝕚𝕔 𝕗𝕣𝕖𝕖 𝕥𝕣𝕒𝕕𝕖 𝕕𝕖𝕒𝕝 𝕨𝕚𝕥𝕙 𝔼𝕦𝕣𝕠𝕡𝕖𝕒𝕟 𝕌𝕟𝕚𝕠𝕟 𝕗𝕠𝕣 ℕ𝕖𝕨 ℤ𝕖𝕒𝕝𝕒𝕟𝕕

ℕ𝕖𝕨 ℤ𝕖𝕒𝕝𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝔼𝕦𝕣𝕠𝕡𝕖𝕒𝕟 𝕌𝕟𝕚𝕠𝕟 𝕙𝕒𝕧𝕖 𝕤𝕥𝕣𝕦𝕔𝕜 𝕒𝕟 𝕙𝕚𝕤𝕥𝕠𝕣𝕚𝕔 𝕗𝕣𝕖𝕖 𝕥𝕣𝕒𝕕𝕖 𝕕𝕖𝕒𝕝, "𝕦𝕟𝕝𝕠𝕔𝕜𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕒𝕔𝕔𝕖𝕤𝕤 𝕥𝕠 𝕠𝕟𝕖 𝕠𝕗 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕨𝕠𝕣𝕝𝕕'𝕤 𝕓𝕚𝕘𝕘𝕖𝕤𝕥 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕞𝕠𝕤𝕥 𝕝𝕦𝕔𝕣𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕧𝕖 𝕞𝕒𝕣𝕜𝕖𝕥𝕤" 𝕒𝕗𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕗𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕪𝕖𝕒𝕣𝕤 𝕠𝕗 𝕥𝕠𝕦𝕘𝕙 𝕟𝕖𝕘𝕠𝕥𝕚𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘.

W

orld famous Super-star Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and President of the European Union Ursula von der Leyen unveiled the details in Brussels, but it was touch and go as to whether a good enough deal could be agreed.

The negotiations went right to the limit, with Ardern and Trade Minister Damien O'Connor involved in the last phase of the talks, just hours before the official announcement was made.

The agreement - about 14 years in the making - means New Zealand views it as "commercially meaningful" and as worth putting pen to paper.

Ardern said it was a "strategically important and economically beneficial deal that comes at a crucial time in our export led COVID-19 recovery", covering 27 EU member states.

"It delivers tangible gains for exporters into a restrictive agricultural market. It cuts costs and red tape for exporters and opens up new high value market opportunities and increases our economic resilience through diversifying the markets that we can more freely export into," she said.

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By 2035, the value of New Zealand exports to the EU will increase by $1.8 billion a year, which Ardern said was more lucrative than the benefits gained from New Zealand's recent deal with the United Kingdom.

Eventually, 97 percent of New Zealand's current exports to the EU will eventually be duty-free, and with more than 91 percent of tariffs will be removed the day the FTA comes into effect.

There will be immediate tariff elimination for all kiwifruit, wine, onions, apples, mānuka honey and manufactured goods, as well as almost all fish and seafood, and other horticultural products. It will also become easier for a range of service providers to access the EU, including education.

National & its supporters will be livid. I read one comment on Stuff where some bozo was thanking John key! How deluded is that? All the work done by PM Jacinda/govt had nothing to do with Mr Runaway. NZ secures historic free trade deal with European Union https://t.co/qhKCPS6sgu

— LouieTheBoostedRed (@LouieTheRed1) June 30, 2022

Meat and dairy have always been a tough sell due to the protected European market; once fully implemented this deal will deliver new quota opportunities worth over $600 million in annual export earnings, with an eight-fold increase to the amount of beef able to be sold into Europe. Duty free access for sheep meat has been expanded by 38,000 tonnes each year.

Red meat and dairy will get up to $120m worth of new annual export revenue on day one of the deal, with estimates of more than $600m within seven years.

Quotas have been established for butter, cheese, milk powders and protein whey.

The vast bulk of dairy tariffs will be eliminated within seven years, however the current system is a bit trickier. New Zealand had World Trade Organisation quotas for butter and cheese, but exporters couldn't make use of them as the 'in-tariff rates' were so high it wasn't economic to make use of them.

#BREAKING: We’ve just secured a historic free trade deal with the European Union!

This deal will boost our annual exports by up to $1.8 billion, enable Kiwi businesses to grow, and unlock one of the world’s biggest markets of 450 million people. pic.twitter.com/1peCKcQZsi

— New Zealand Labour (@nzlabour) June 30, 2022

For example, butter has a 46,000 tonne annual quota, but the tariff rate was 38 percent.

Under the new deal, of that quota, 36,000 tonnes will have a 5 percent tariff over seven years - once fully in force that is a $258m benefit each year.

There's been a stop on New Zealand cheese exports to the EU for the last five years, for the same reason.

But under the FTA there will be immediate access through a tariff-free, annual quota of 31,000 tonnes - worth about $187m each year to the local industry.

Another particular element of the deal is 'geographical indications'; names of products that come with a strong connection to a specific area and ones the EU wants protected from use by anyone outside of that region.

For the cheese makers and the cheese lovers - New Zealand will be able to keep using the names gouda, mozzarella, haloumi, brie and camembert.

Feta, beloved to Greece, will be off the table though and producers here will have to find another name in nine years' time.

Cheese makers will be able to keep using the name 'gruyere', as long as they'd been doing so five years before the deal comes into effect; the same with 'parmesan'.

There's been a carve out for New Zealand medicines and Pharmac, as patent requirements sought by the EU would have made medicines here more expensive by hundreds of millions of dollars a year - New Zealand refused and that's not part of the deal, the only country in the OECD to have that exemption.

Ardern described the deal as "high quality, inclusive and ambitious", containing "ground-breaking commitments on environment, labour rights and gender equality as foundational parts of a trade and sustainable development chapter".

"I am pleased that this FTA also includes a dedicated chapter on Māori Trade and Economic Cooperation," she said.

While Ardern was drumming up support with European leaders at the NATO Summit in Madrid, Trade Minister Damien O'Connor spent the past week in Brussels nailing down the final details.

He says the deal provided "access for products that were previously locked out in the historically difficult to access European market".

"This agreement delivers on what has been a long-standing objective of successive New Zealand governments - an FTA with the European Union, which will help accelerate New Zealand's economic recovery at a time of global disruption," O'Connor said.

'Solid' trade agreement

Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, said it was "modern and solid" trade agreement.

"With this agreement, we should be able to increase trade between the two of us by 30 percent - that's a big step", she said at the media briefing with Ardern.

"Our farmers on both sides will benefit and they will benefit way beyond tariff cuts because we will work together on sustainable food systems."

The EU is New Zealand's third largest trading partner.

On the EU side, she said it meant European investment could grow by about 80 percent, a large number of food products geographical indications have been protected, and nearly all tariffs on exports to New Zealand have been eliminated.

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It's a different kind of agreement, covering modern digital rules, and "several firsts", said von der Leyen, for example, "sanctionable commitments" to the Paris Climate Agreement.

"This is the very first time that we take such commitments in a trade deal... and it contains, again, for the first time provisions on fossil fuels, she said.

"And we show the same ambition on core international labor standards and on gender equality, to advance women's economic empowerment.

"So this agreement will bring major benefits to our economies, but also to our societies."

New Zealand and the EU have also signed an agreement for closer co-operation between law enforcement agencies, allowing greater information sharing and collaboration to help disrupt and respond to transnational organised crime, drug trafficking, money laundering, child sexual exploitation, cybercrime, violent extremism, and terrorism.

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