[By Shinji Hattori, Professor Emeritus of Toyo University]
Why didn’t the negotiators of Japan and the European Union take more time before concluding the Economic Partnership Agreement? I would say they did an extremely sloppy job. Japan agreed to set up a low-tariff import quota of 31,000 tons for EU-made soft cheeses. This is such a large amount, exceeding the amount of annual domestic production of natural cheeses for direct consumption.
Cheese is one of the few food products whose domestic consumption is growing. Low-tariff import quota will be also set for European butter and skimmed milk powder. The agreement is sure to have a harmful effect on domestic dairy farmers.
In the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade talks, Japan has insisted on protecting dairy products as one of the five sensitive categories, but this time Japan gave way to the EU so easily.
The reason behind this hasty decision-making was the eagerness of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s administration to recover the dropping approval rate. The TPP talks, which the Abe administration regarded as the pillar of its growth strategy, have been at a stalemate after the United States withdrew from the pact, and Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party suffered a crushing defeat in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election. The ruling party is also to blame for not having the power to do anything to put the brakes on the negotiators making such an agreement.
Compared with the time when Japan was negotiating for the TPP agreement, the government disclosed even less of what was discussed in the negotiations for the Japan-EU EPA. Virtually no debates were done on the Japan-EU talks. It is such a shame, but I can only think that the government deliberately avoided discussing the issue so that the Japanese people would not become aware of it.
In addition to cheese, European countries have many strong brands of such farm produce as pork and wine. When the Japanese government decided to open markets in the TPP talks, it explained that domestically-made products have a strong brand image so cheap imported goods won’t be able to compete with them. However, this theory won’t work for European products.
Japanese farmers are having difficulty planning their future. The latest deal will leave Japan’s agriculture industry with tremendous challenges.