The ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) invited representatives of farmers’ organizations on July 15 at a meeting of a group of agriculture, forestry and fishery set up in LDP’s Headquarters for Japan EU Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) to ask for their views about ongoing EPA free trade negotiations.
Choe Okuno, president of JA ZENCHU (Central Union of Agricultural Cooperatives), an apex body of agricultural cooperatives in Japan, called for protection of domestic agriculture through boarder measures including tariffs so as to enable Japanese farmers to continuously produce major commodities.
LDP’s Diet members attending the meeting expressed their views supporting Choe Okuno one after another by urging that a Japan-EU EPA trade accord should not exceed the level of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade pact.
“Japan must not cross the line of contents of TPP free trade deals,” Kanehiko Shindo, a member of the House of Councilors said. Councilor Shinya Fujiki followed Kanehiko by saying “The TPP agreement is a bottom line. Our negotiators should not break bedrock of TPP deals.”
Councilor Kazuo Yana confirmed that EU negotiators are calling for elimination of tariff for European soft-type cheese competing against Japanese products, although the tariff was kept at the TPP free trade talks. He warned the government not to remove boarder measures for protecting domestic production of the cheese, saying “The utmost consideration for domestic producers should be taken to ease their concerns about the future of cheese production.”
Shinjiro Koizumi, a representative of the Headquarters’ group of agriculture, forestry and fishery, gave his candid advice to Japanese negotiators about disclosure of information on the Japan-EU talks, saying “The information must be provided to stakeholders. The governmental system of transparency is not working better than that for the past TPP negotiations.”