Agence France Presse | August 7, 2003
The United States said Thursday it would launch a formal World Trade Organization challenge to a European block on bio-engineered foods.
US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick and Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said they would fight the European Union by asking the WTO to set up a dispute settlement panel.
The main US allies in the row -- Canada and Argentina -- also were requesting WTO panels, they said.
"Delegations from the United States, Canada and Argentina consulted in June with EU officials, but the EU indicated no willingness to comply with its WTO obligations by lifting the groundless moratorium on biotech products," Zoellick said.
"The EU's stance leaves us no choice but to proceed with the establishment of a WTO dispute settlement panel," he added.
"For five years, the EU has kept in place a ban on biotech approvals, a ban which is unsupported even by the EU's own scientific studies. This trade barrier harms farmers and consumers around the world by denying them the benefits of productive, nutritious and environmentally friendly biotech products."
The WTO dispute settlement panel, a type of international court for trade spats, can be set up at the request of a country after a 60-day consultation period between opposing sides.
That period has expired in the US-EU case.
The United States, Canada and Argentina launched the WTO case in mid-May by requesting formal consultations with Europe.
During the consultation period, the European Commission said it had the right to decide for itself how to regulate genetically modified organisms (GMOs), which include crops such as corn and soybeans.
The European Union last month agreed to two new directives on biotechnology foods, which it said would open the way to lifting a de facto moratorium on biotechnology food imports by member countries.
One directive required that foods and animal feed be labelled if they contain at least 0.9 percent of GM ingredients; and the other required that GM foods' origin can be traced.
But the United States said the new labelling and tracking rules made no difference to its case.
"Since neither one of these new regulations lifts the illegal moratorium on biotech products, they do not affect the US WTO challenge," the US administration statement said.
Other countries supporting the United States are Australia, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, New Zealand, and Peru.
The biotechnology dispute is raging ahead of a meeting of the world's trade ministers in Cancun, Mexico from September 10-14 to take stock of stalled WTO negotiations to free up trade.
Agricultural subsidies are expected to be one of the main obstacles confronting policymakers.Agence France Presse:
