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Abstract
Meat market has always had a special attention due to repeating crises
and confidence breakdowns. Even though global meat trade has grown in the
past decades, driven mainly by gains in poultry and pig meat originating from
developing regions, many countries that produce and consume meat still remain
disconnected by trade. Trade barriers, as sanitary and protectionist standards,
have heavily influenced meat market. Sanitary standards related to animal
diseases, food safety concerns and health issue awareness mostly identify those
countries that are “free” and those that are “not free” of potential risks. Although
sanitary barriers can inhibit trade flows they protect against the spread of serious
diseases and other risks that can break animal production. On the other hand,
protectionist barriers in the form of tariffs and tariff-rate quotas designed as
domestic support may distort international markets and prevent significant
potential trade in meats. The EU occupies an important position in the world
meat market due to its export performance drawn from subsidies and sanitary
and protection barriers that have been the focus of strong criticism by some
developed and developing countries, among others. The Doha round has had an
ambitious call in lowering protectionist barriers and achieving substantial
improvements in market access and reductions of export subsidies and in tradedistorting
domestic support. Yet, major protectionist barriers linger even so and
the average global meat tariffs are higher than the average tariffs for other
agricultural goods. Furthermore, these developments in trade liberalization and
market access seem not to be only precondition for trade to occur as well as only
answer to meat crisis.