orange exports to the EU in this period. Tunisia’s quota filling rate varies between 48% and
75%. The rate for Cyprus is always below 50%. Israel exhibits the lowest filling rates,
declining from 32% in 1991 to 12% in 2004. The unweighted average filling rate fell from
over 100% in 1991 to 39% in 1999, but rose again to over 50% in 2002.
Overall, while TRQs and EPQs for oranges originating in the MEDs were increasing
following their introduction, the MED countries’ orange exports to the EU were decreasing.
Therefore, the quota filling rate has fallen for most MED countries and the unweighted
average quota filling rate has been 60% or less for all years since 1997.
4 Discussion of results and implications
The analysis of the EU import price for oranges reveals that the import price of oranges
originating in the MED is about 40% higher than the MFN entry price on average. The import
price is highest for Israeli produce with the SIV for oranges amounting 158% of the MFN
entry price. In addition, the investigation on the EU trade preferences for oranges showed that
about 70% of EU orange imports during the EU orange harvest season originate in the MED
which are covered by a preferential tariff and enter the EU tariff-free since 1993. This
suggests that the contribution of the external market regulation to the protection of EU orange
growers is low. In particular, the entry price system for oranges is of little effectiveness.
Concordantly, Morocco, Israel and Cyprus do not utilize the preferential entry price for
oranges. This suggests that these countries do not have a comparative cost advantage vis-à-vis
their competitors in the EU market, i.e. Spanish orange exporters. Indeed, EU importers report
that prices of Moroccan and Israeli orange imports are significantly higher than the import
price of Spanish oranges. Egypt is the only MED profiting from the preferential entry price to
some degree.
Also, the analysis uncovered that the total orange quota far exceeds exports of Israel, Cyprus
and Tunisia at any time and Morocco since 1992. Egypt is the only MED for which orange
exports excel the total quota during a significant time period. Overall, although orange quotas
increased from 1991 to 2004 for the MED as a whole, actual exports declined concurrently
and thus quota filling rates have decreased. This indicates that the quantitative limitations of
tariff and entry price reductions within TRQs and EPQs are largely redundant. Thus, EU trade
preferences for oranges are not decisive for the development of the MED’s orange exports to
the EU
Additionally, it became evident that the improvement of market access for Spain and Portugal
due to their EU accession occurred almost parallel to the enhancement of preferences for the
MED until 1993. This supports the conclusion that the development of trade preferences for
the MED compared to market access conditions for Spain and Portugal was not decisive for
the development of the MED’s orange exports to the EU up to 1993.
Our results indicate that the erosion of orange trade preferences of Israel and Morocco relative
to those of Spain and Portugal in the aftermath of 1993 did not cause the decline of orange
exports from those countries. Both countries’ orange exports enter the EU tariff free since
1993. Also, the preferential entry price is not utilized by the orange exporters of Israel and
Morocco. Even, the average import price of oranges originating in Israel and Morocco is
about 58% and 28% higher than the MFN entry price, respectively. Hence, any erosion of
trade preferences compared to Spain which is suggested by Cioffi and dell’Aquila (2004:
175), could not originate from EU trade policies. Also, we cannot find evidence for the
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