Turkish Sunflower Oil Exporters Without EUR1 Certification at a Disadvantage in EU Market

The EUR1 is a certificate of origin used to import goods into the EU from countries with which the EU has trade agreements. Depending on the agreement for certain goods, the importer pays lower import duties or no import duties. For Turkish sunflower oil exporters the EUR1 certificate can only be provided to companies whose raw materials are of European origin. Thus, companies with cracking mill factories purchase seeds of European origin, process them, and export EUR1 certified sunflower oil to Europe as much as their core imports. However, suppliers in Turkey are mostly not able to provide EUR1 certificates. For this reason, a 10-15% tax is levied on the buyer party resulting in Turkish sunflower oil losing its price advantage and not being competitive in the European sunflower oil market.