This week sees the 6^th round of negotiations coming to Brussels.

Negotiations continue to be focused on issues such as market access, regulatory coherence and technical barriers to trade. ICOS is leveraging our position as an official stakeholder in the process to make direct interventions to negotiators both on the EU and the US sides regarding both opportunities and challenges for our dairy co-operative businesses in the formulation of this deal.

ICOS’s key demands from a dairy perspective would be the opening up of the US dairy market to our high grade exports along our dairy supply chain, from commodities to our functional food ranges. We are adamant that a deal should not to just allow dairy exports to be tied up in speciality, GI focused cheeses from south Europe.

The 7^th round of negotiations is pencilled in for October.