11 November 2024

3 minute read

By: Global Ag Media

The EU chicken meat trade surplus is expected to increase in 2024 as EU imports will slightly decrease (minus 0.7%). Exports are expected to grow by 7%, 

The UK is the EU’s largest supplier and customer of chicken meat. However, the balance of trade favors the EU. The EU exports almost 4 times more volume to the UK than it imports.

As extra-EU imports are set to decline in 2024 and 2025, the UK is set to gain an increasing share of the EU import market.

EU imports of chicken meat are regulated by Regulation (EU) 2020/760 that sets tariff rate quotas (TRQ) for specific HS code category. Products imported above the existing quotas are subject to the EU ad valorem tariff.

In 2024, Brazil is expected to lose its status as the largest supplier of chicken meat to the EU. The EU’s largest trading partner will be the UK. Since Brexit, the UK is considered to be an extra-EU trading partner, and therefore non-EU trade arrangements apply. This includes prohibiting imports of chilled and frozen minced poultry meat as well as mechanically separated poultry meat. Imports of chicken meat from UK declined sharply between 2021 and 2023. 

In 2021, UK exporters faced increasing border controls and inspections as the Brexit transition period started on January 1, 2021. Many of the initial administrative challenges appear to have been resolved and British chicken meat is again flowing regularly into the EU. Moreover, as UK imports more Ukrainian chicken meat under a zero-duty regime, UK exporters are attracted to supplying fresh/chilled chicken meat to the EU.

Following an audit led by the EU’s DG Sante in October and November 2023, the EU has acknowledged that Brazil has improved controls on poultry meat sent to Europe. The audit noted that Brazil has largely addressed the recommendations of previous audits in 2017 and 2018. However, the EU nevertheless suspended chicken meat trade from several plants belonging to the BRF company due to improper sanitary conditions. These have affected Brazil’s ability to export chicken meat to the EU.

In 2021, Brazil requested WTO consultations with the European Union with respect to measures on importation of certain poultry meat preparations from Brazil, in particular salted poultry meat and turkey meat with pepper. The request concerned the EU’s food safety criteria for salmonella on fresh poultry meat and certain poultry meat preparations. At that time, Brazil noted that there is no technical or scientific justification for the application of stricter microbiological criteria, and therefore Brazil views this measure as discriminatory and as a violation of the rules of the Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures of the WTO.

The EU-MERCOSUR Free Trade Agreement announced in the summer of 2019 could eventually facilitate Brazilian exports of poultry meat to the EU, but a final ratification of this Agreement remains very uncertain. Several EU Member States have been very vocal in expressing their concerns. France, for example, is against the agreement, and Germany has also indicated its own concerns.