Source: POLITICO'S MORNING AGRICULTURE, 10/10/18

European Union ambassadors today are set to approve a new round of trade negotiations with Washington that could open a larger share of the bloc's hormone-free-beef quota to U.S. ranchers. Our POLITICO Europe colleagues tell us next week is the projected timing for EU trade ministers to follow suit and sign off on negotiating parameters for the European Commission. Negotiations with Washington can start at that point.

"We want to negotiate swiftly," one European trade attaché told our colleagues. Another said that trade experts from EU nations took only a few weeks to approve the negotiating text — a quick turnaround on a sensitive trade topic. The second trade attaché said the speedy approval of beef trade talks by officials in Brussels was an attempt to show goodwill toward Washington and stave off any escalation of Trump's tariff threats.

How the quota works: The policy stems from a long-running World Trade Organization dispute over the EU's refusal to import U.S. beef treated with hormones. In 2009, the U.S. and EU agreed to set an annual quota of 45,000 metric tonnes (nearly 50,000 in U.S. tons) for hormone-free-beef imports to Europe, which was open to the U.S. and other nations.

Australia and Uruguay now take up large portions of the quota — their farmers can produce premium beef more cheaply than American farmers — drawing complaints from the U.S. that the system wasn't working. The Obama administration threatened to cancel the 2009 arrangement and slap steep tariffs on European goods.

Prime cut of the quota: The European Commission has said it wants to give a specific portion of the quota exclusively to U.S. beef. Washington is expected to ask for a minimum of 35,000 metric tonnes. That means less meat for Australia and Uruguay, which are already strongly protesting. (Australia last year used about 17,000 tons of the beef quota.)