Brewers reiterate need for level-playing field in trade talks

The German Chancellor Angela Merkel has backed the call from the Brewers of Europe, a trade body, to end the discrimination for small European breweries exporting to the United States. The fifth round of talks between the EU and the United States on the Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership (TTIP) began in Arlington, Virginia, on 19 May 2014.

As the Brewers of Europe said on 19 May 2014, in her meeting with President Obama earlier this month, Chancellor Merkel responded to scepticism about the need for such a deal by referring to the difficulties experienced by smaller German breweries exporting to the United States.

Currently, small US brewers exporting to the EU are eligible for a reduced tax rate both in the US and the EU, whilst a European brewer exporting to the U.S. gets no such break.

Pierre-Olivier Bergeron, Secretary General of The Brewers of Europe, said: “Just as small brewers from the U.S. can receive significant discounts when exporting to the EU, our wish is that small brewers from the EU, which export around 8 million hl of beer to the U.S. annually, benefit from the same discount in the U.S. as the domestic brewers.”

Mr Bergeron continued: “With brewers from 26 out of 28 EU countries already exporting to the U.S. and the huge majority of Europe’s 5000 breweries meeting the U.S. small brewer definition (annual production of up to 2 million U.S. barrels), an agreement in the TTIP talks would remove a considerable burden imposed on the 250 small European breweries that already export to the US and open the way for other small brewers.”

Mr Bergeron concluded that an agreement on this issue would provide a much-needed boost, not just for Europe’s brewing sector, but also for U.S. consumers wishing to access a wide-range of European products.