Report on the Implementation of the derogation to ... - Trade Websites

Final <strong>Report</strong>
RoO Derogation under the PACP-IEPA
not least because it does not yet have commercial ties with the major EU brands, which as shown in
Section 6.1 play a central role in the EU market. 306 The Oceanic Développement assessment
identified the most likely impact of the derogation as being a diversion of raw material supply from
processors reliant on catch from the WCPO, especially Thailand and the Philippines. The consultants’
research findings from this review concur with this general assessment.
The second, more recent, study was commissioned by EUROTHON. Sullivan et al. (2011), found that:
‘it is not possible to identify global sourcing as the immediate cause of processing declines in the EU’;
‘global sourcing in PNG is not a more immediate threat to the EU processing sector than the
numerous constraints that it already faces from global competitors’; ‘PNG processors might be more
competitive in loining, than in canning, though in the long term’ canning might become more viable
307
‘if PNG production costs improve’. The ‘long term’ was not defined. The only major medium-term
threat indentified by Sullivan et al. (2011) is if the derogation is seen as a precedent rather than as
an exception (see discussion in Section 2).
The following attempts to deepen these analyses. It draws heavily on projections of potential PNG
exports using the production plans for 2016 of all known current and future processors investing in
PNG (as defined in Table 3.13). It combines this with contextual analyses of market and industry
dynamics to assess the current and medium term impacts of the derogation.
Caveats
It is important to emphasize a series of caveats that limit the reliability of any projections of the
impact of the derogation on EU markets, the EU DWF, EU-based processors and third countries
exporting canned tuna to the EU (and the relations among them all). The following are considered to
be of particular importance:
• The situation of global tuna catch is open to considerable uncertainty. This includes:
o
o
o
o
Direct anthropogenic effects on stocks such as potential overfishing, especially
yellowfin, and the widely acknowledged limitations on all tuna RFMOs of adequately
managing these stocks.
Indirect anthropogenic effects on stocks such as ocean acidification and global
warming.
Cyclical El Niño and La Niña events affecting tuna, including their habits and prey.
Intensified global competition for all natural resources, including tuna, and its
potential manifestations in the strategies of firms and of governments, which may
result in changing priorities in the production and direction of consumption of tuna.
o The incidence of piracy in the Western Indian Ocean continues to disrupt EU DWF
operations there.
• Rapid and unpredicted downward shifts in extra-EU imports in 2009 and 2010 (see Section
6.1).
• A rapidly changing world economy, typified by a global slump in the OECD countries and
elsewhere, which makes tuna industry dynamics very difficult to predict.
• Changing domestic dynamics in major locations of production, including civil unrest, wider
political change and natural disasters.
306 Oceanic Développement 2010: 120.
307 Sullivan et al. 2011: 18-19 (emphasis added).
Linpico s.a.r.l. Page 149