Temporary import ban 'will not affect UK butter supplies'

Anchor butter supplies to Britain should not be hit by a temporary suspension of imports, the European Commission said today.

The message was also conveyed to New Zealand trade minister Phil Goff when he called EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel in Brussels for reassurance early today.

The import ban, ordered by the Commission, follows a European court ruling that the current EU-wide distribution system for New Zealand butter discriminates in favour of the UK and is illegal.

A Commission spokesman said: “We have already started bringing the rules into line with the judgment and we expect to have done so by September. Anchor butter is not being taken off the shelves, and New Zealand’s 2006 import quota into the EU of about 77,000 tonnes at preferential tariffs will be fulfilled.”

The German Egenberger company complained to the EU’s highest court that the traditional import licensing system for New Zealand butter was unfair because under current EU arrangements an application from another EU country for an import licence for New Zealand butter has to be lodged in the UK.

The system is a legacy of the special deal negotiated by the UK on EU membership, allowing continued favourable access for New Zealand butter.

“The UK has been an EU member now for 33 years, and the court has said access to import licences should be more fairly distributed,” said the Commission spokesman.

“That is why we have introduced a temporary import ban while we adjust the arrangement in line with the court ruling.”

At the moment applications for import licences for New Zealand butter at reduced duty must be handled by the UK authorities.

The judges said the system “leads to a difference in treatment between importers established in the UK and potential importers established in other member states”.

“This is due to the practical disadvantages resulting from the fact that non-UK operators have to pursue all administrative and judicial procedures in a foreign environment.”

About a third of all New Zealand butter is exported to the EU, the bulk of it to the UK.