Tunisia's Exports to EU Fall Despite Increased Duty-Free Quotas

According to the Tunisian Economic Observatory (an inde­pen­dent orga­ni­za­tion of researchers, ana­lysts, and activists), Tunisia has not been able to ben­e­fit from the increased duty-free import quo­tas granted by the EU in 2016.

On April 21, 2017, the Observatory pub­lished an arti­cle, Export of Tunisian Olive Oil: The Reality of EU Support, on its web­site high­light­ing the fact that the pro­posed EU sup­port has not mate­ri­al­ized in a con­crete way.

It sug­gests that the pro­posal, adopted dur­ing the first round of the EU-Tunisia Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) nego­ti­a­tions, was noth­ing more than a charm offen­sive rather than a real show of sup­port for the Tunisian olive oil indus­try.

In April 2016, the European Parliament approved a tem­po­rary zero-duty tar­iff quota of 35,000 tons per year (a total of 70,000 tons for 2016 and 2017) for olive oil imports to the EU from Tunisia, in a bid to help strengthen the Tunisian econ­omy fol­low­ing the 2015 ter­ror­ist attack. This was in addi­tion to the 56,700 tons already allo­cated to Tunisia duty-free, for an annual total of 91,700 tons. The leg­isla­tive pro­posal was adopted by the European Commission on September 17, 2016.

According to European Commission fig­ures, in 2015 Tunisia used up the entirety of its max­i­mum duty-free quota at the time — 56,700 tons, which rep­re­sented 27 per­cent of its total exports to the EU that year. This was an excep­tional crop year for Tunisia: it exported a total of 304,000 tons world­wide (accord­ing to fig­ures released by the International Olive Council), and became the world’s largest exporter of olive oil that year.

In January 2016 Tunisia exported its max­i­mum duty-free quota of 56,700 tons to the EU, after which exports were halted before resum­ing in May when the newly approved sup­ple­men­tary quota was applic­a­ble. Despite this top up, the EU imported only 10,351 extra tons from May to December 2016 – which rep­re­sents only 30 per­cent of the extra quota. This means that Tunisia was not able to ben­e­fit from the extra boost of sup­port the EU had promised.

Initial fig­ures for 2017 indi­cate that so far only 37,154 tons of Tunisian olive oil have been exported to the EU up to the end of May. However, recent fig­ures released by Tunisia’s National Office for Oil reveal a 28.5 per­cent drop in pro­duc­tion and a sub­se­quent 25 per­cent decrease in exports com­pared to last year.

The 2016 increase in tar­iff-free quo­tas for Tunisia had met with oppo­si­tion in some European coun­tries and par­tic­u­larly with farm­ers’ orga­ni­za­tions in Italy who feared the con­se­quences of cheap oil flood­ing their mar­ket.

• Tunisian Economic Observatory


• European Commission