Spain - Prohibited & Restricted Imports Spain - Prohibited Imports
To determine if a product is prohibited or subject to restriction, check the TARIC for that product for the following codes:
CITES Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species
PROHI Import Suspension
RSTR Import Restriction
For information on how to access the TARIC, see the Import Tariffs section above.
Spanish regulations ban the import of illicit narcotics and drugs. There are also very restrictive regulations for imports of explosives, firearms, defense equipment and material, tobacco and gambling material. Furthermore, the government highly restricts the import of many types of pharmaceutical products.
EU regulations on hormones ban most U.S. beef and beef products from entry into the EU, and disable the importation of certain live cattle. The United States successfully challenged the EU hormone ban at the World Trade Organization, but the EU has not yet opened its market to hormone-treated beef. The EC has instead opened a quota for the import of hormone-free beef.
The basis for this HQB quota is a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the United States and the European Union. The details for the administration of this zero duty, 20,000 MT beef quota were published in Commission Regulation (EC) No 620/2009. This U.S. - EU compromise deal was formally approved in Council Regulation (EC) No 617/2009, published in the Official Journal on July 15, 2009. The quota was put into place on August 1, 2009, for a period of three years. The quota was expanded by mutual agreement on August 1 2012 to 45,000 MT. However, the following countries were authorized to include their beef under the HQB quota: Australia (January 2010), Canada (March 2011), New Zealand (July 2011) and Uruguay (August 2011). The Canada MOU made a further 3,200 MT of HQB at zero duty available as of August 1, 2012, thus bringing the total available amount to 48,200 MT. Brazil is in the process of authorization as well. In August 2014, the EC allowed Argentina to join the group of countries which are eligible to export under the quota.
As described in the report EU Livestock and Products Semi -Annual 2017, the U.S. beef industry put forward a petition on December 2016 to reinstate trade actions against the EU in connection with the EU’s longstanding ban on the import of most beef produced in the United States. On February 15-16, 2017, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) held a hearing in Washington, DC to gather comments on the petition. The U.S. and the EU are discussing a review of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on hormone beef.
The Comprehensive Economic and Trade agreement between Canada and the European Union (CETA) went into effect on September 21, 2017 and affects the quota. The quota amount of the HBQ quota was reduced from 48,200 MT to 45,000 MT with the entry into force of CETA. The original 48,200 MT included 45,000 MT stemming from the U.S.-EU Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and 3,200 MT stemming from the Canadian-EU MOU now incorporated in CETA.
On July 1, 2019 the new EU High Quality Beef Quota year will start. This will be a full quota year and will cover 45,000 MT of product divided over four quarters. U.S. exporters can use this quota as well as the Hilton quota for exporting high quality bovine meat to the European Union. This report details the program and certification requirements for both tariff rate quotas.
On January 8, 2019, just over 6,220 MT of beef was waiting allocation to the third quarter of the 2018/19 High Quality Beef (HQB) quota. This represents 55.3 percent of the 11,250 MT available for this quarter through the end of March 2019. It demonstrates the ever-increasing competition for the HQB quota between eligible exporting countries. By February 1, quota availability was down to 662.5 MT (More Info).