Garlic smuggling: an effect of EU anti-free trade policy

The EU have never claimed that you can import what ever you want from outside the EU without paying tax.

Sounds like your saying Mexico that the EU is at least an honest organisation - free trade within the Zone - but a complex set of rules regarding trade with non-EU countries applies involving tarriffs on garlic but not on ginger, and no doubt all sorts of similar weirdness for other products.

Yep (sort of) bongo.

Agriculture in the EU has a fair amount of protectionism through tariffs & spending tax payers money to subsidize production unhealthy food. It results in many thousands of deaths each year.

Seems strange that ginger does not have a tax but garlic does - my guess (can't be asked to look it up) would be that French farmers produce Garlic but not ginger.

Oh mexico  - don't go saying that

you will have northern on here calling you a jackbooted nazi racist ha ha!!!

I once grew garlic successfully when I lived in the south west - nice mild climate (walled garden)  it did quite well but not as well as some of that lovely french garlic

The EU and politicians go on about free-trade, free-market................however none of them understand free-trade or market.
In order to have free-market economy there should be no taxes on import. Companies should not be paying maternity leave, holiday pay, etc.

I read the above case a few days ago........how is it that they can stop ginger import but not the 'human import'

Ski - The EU don't claim to be a worldwide free-trade organisation.

There was a stripped-down computer developed in the UK a couple of years ago, the name escapes me. It was meant to be educational, to allow someone to understand chip-sets, machine code and the language of an operating system better. It turned out that to manufacture the whole thing to completion in Far East meant low tariffs, but to import some of the components and complete the process here meant the tariff was higher.

I've found out that ginger doesn't grow outdoors in the EU, it's just not hot and moist enough. However some strains will grow under glass - so anyone innovating, trying this commercially, and getting decent results, has to compete against imports with no tariff. But grow some garlic and the EU will give you an advantage over the Asian agri-person. 

The world is mad.

Yep pretty much Bongo,

But grow some garlic and the EU will give you an advantage over the Asian agri-person. 

That is what CAP is about. 50% of Nobel Peace Prize winners EU budget spent on agriculture. People die each year as a result of this policy.


I'm sure if we could grow ginger in the EU there would be a tariff on that.