For more information and help with trade barriers please contact:
International Trade Administration
1 (202) 482-0063
The United States and the EU are committed to ongoing cooperation aimed at reducing or eliminating barriers to trade and investment. American businesses in Spain have few complaints about trade barriers. Reported trade barriers include:
- Construction: American construction firms note that they have not been able to win public-sector construction contracts in Spain, although they have not specifically alleged systematic discrimination against them by Spanish authorities. Spanish counterparts, many of whom have made substantial investments in the United States, have won many large public-sector construction contracts in the United States, which has prompted typically very competitive American firms to ask why they are not similarly successful in the Spanish market.
- Genetically Engineered Crops: Commercial cultivation of genetically engineered (GE) crops in the EU is limited to 69,910 hectares of MON810 corn in Spain (97%) and Portugal (3%) in 2022. Regulatory constraints that prevent this area from further growth include a cultivation ban in 19 member states, strict coexistence rules, and a mandatory field register.
New GE crops are entering the global marketplace at an increasingly rapid rate. The EU regulatory procedures for approving biotech plants take significantly longer than those in supplier countries. This has led to a widening gap between GE products deregulated and grown in biotechnology growing countries (including the United States) and those approved in the EU, resulting in the partial or complete disruption of trade in affected commodities and processed products. This represents a problem for commodity trading companies, as it limits their sourcing options and increases their risk when trading with countries that grow crops with traits that are not yet approved within the EU. Shipments of agricultural commodities destined for the EU have been rejected when traces of such products have been detected at the point of entry. Also, delays in GE product approval in the EU have an impact on farmers’ planting decisions in those third countries that supply agricultural products to the EU.
The effect of these asynchronous approvals is exacerbated by the EU’s policy for low level or adventitious presence of events. Commodity trading companies face increased risk in their operations when trading with countries that grow crops with traits not yet approved in the EU, even when trading in other GE crops, as low-level presence may appear throughout the different links of the commodities supply chain.
Seed trade is affected by the zero tolerance of adventitious presence, which is when low levels of unintended GE events are present in a seed shipment. The fact that the EU only allows cultivation of MON810 serves as a trade barrier for U.S. seed exports that might have adventitious presence of other GE events. A threshold level for adventitious GE material presence has not yet been set in the EU. Therefore, the EU is forced to either produce its corn seeds domestically or import seeds from a limited number of origins where seed is produced under restrictive conditions that prevent cross-contamination with GE events not-yet approved for cultivation.
- Media Law: The General Audiovisual Communication Law, approved on May 26, 2022, by the Spanish Parliament, replaces the previous law from 2010. The text transposes the European Audiovisual Media Services Directive. Spanish broadcasters are required by law to reserve 51% of their annual broadcast time for European audiovisual (AV) productions. Television operators are also obliged to contribute 5% of their annual earnings to finance European feature-length films and series for European television, with 50% of the “investment quota” being spent on AV productions in one of Spain’s official languages.
Video platforms, such as Netflix, Amazon, HBO or Disney+ must allocate 5% of the income generated in Spain to finance European audiovisual works, including 70% of independent Spanish productions, whether shot in Spanish or in one of Spain’s official languages: Catalan, Basque, or Galician.
On-demand television audiovisual communication service providers must reserve 30% of their catalog for European works. Half (15%) must be works in official languages in Spain and, of that, 40% must be audiovisual works in Spain’s official languages, taking into account the population and reserving at least 10% for each of them.
The General Law on Audiovisual Communication strengthens the promotion of European audiovisual works by independent producers, increasing investment obligations. Those who are bound must fulfill two allocations (the percentages are not added together):
- 3.5% to audiovisual work in any format, which must be done in one of Spain’s official languages, compared to 0.9% previously
- 2% to the financing of films by independent producers, which must also be made in one of Spain’s official languages, compared to the previous 1.8%.