Denmark curbing its fixing for Thai chicken

All information taken from "EU chicken quotas agreed" Bangkok Post (Thailand) November 25, 2006
http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/document?_m=de76ee4da078ee5a4175ab9e7e1d4b7d&_docnum=1&wchp=dGLzVlz-zSkVb&_md5=d3e1c0861d635901af9af58cf010cd1c

It appears something was indeed rotten in the state of Denmark. That something, however, wasn't what one might think; in late November of 2006, Denmark and the rest of the European Union reached terms with Thailand regarding quotas limiting the amount of poultry products coming into Europe from Thailand. The EU has agreed with Thailand to instil a quota of 160,033 tons on cooked Thai chicken and 92,610 tons on salted chicken from Thailand. The agreement also entailed the tariffs to be put on the poultry products, with the cooked chicken having an 8 percent tariff rate and a 1,024 Euros/ton tax on products exceding the quota and slated poultry baring a 15.4 percent tariff and a penalty of 1,300 Euros/ton exceding the quota limit.

It may seem like these limits on a small southeastern Asian country wouldn't effect the European marketplace, however, the fact of the matter is that Thailand is the biggest exporter of chicken to the European Union. While the low tariff high quota deal might seem advantageous to Thailand, as of right now the shipment of all uncooked poultry from Thailand to the EU has been stopped because of the Bird Flu. In the end Thailand is able to export substantial portions of chicken (seeing as Thailand exported an average of 80,750 tons of chicken to the EU from 2003-2005) while European chicken farmers are still protected by the limited quotas and tariffs in place.

*author's note: As some of you may have noticed, I tended to use EU more than Denmark in this blog entry. Don't be afraid, the reasoning behind this is that, as an EU member state, Denmark must abide by any EU-wide trade agreement.