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Brussels must not undermine the UK cheese industry as part of any deal in the world trade talks, according to Dairy UK. Shortsighted concessions at this late stage could affect a vibrant, innovative and growing UK industry that sustains thousands of jobs.

Speaking ahead of a crunch World Trade Organisation (WTO) meeting beginning in Geneva on 21 July, Dairy UK Director General Jim Begg said: “We’ve written to tell both the UK government and the European Commission that offering import quotas for cheese would be a huge slip up. Quota plans have been mooted and would inevitably result in tens of thousands of tonnes of imported, non EU Cheddar hitting the UK market, potentially disrupting the UK cheese industry.

“The pressure comes not from developing nations but from major dairy exporting countries chasing profits. Since most of these countries make Cheddar, any concession on quotas would effectively target the UK cheese market.

“This market is one of the centres of growth for the UK dairy industry and the focus of a great deal of product innovation and investment. An explosion of consumer interest in cheese has sparked the launch of a wealth of new products. The sector’s growing confidence could be undermined by a move to boost cheaper imports.”

The WTO Mini-Ministerial meeting aims to reach agreement on the principles of any final package around which WTO members would prepare their final binding offers. One proposed avenue for reaching a deal is to nominate so called “sensitive products” for special deals on tariffs. Sensitive products would be subject to smaller tariff rate cuts, but, in exchange, countries would have to open import tariff quotas for these products, giving them access to the EU market.

For cheese, the quota could be up to 80,000 tonnes, nearly doubling current EU imports of 100,000 tonnes. By way of context, the UK produced around 380,000 tonnes in 2007. Whilst the decision on which products would be nominated by the EU as sensitive products should only be made when countries prepare binding offer schedules, the politics of the negotiations may require the Commission to make informal commitments to WTO members at the forthcoming discussions.