Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue | June 24, 2003
Groups characterize the US suit as a calculated maneuver to impose genetically engineered products on an unwilling world
The Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD) will call upon the US government to drop its World Trade Organization (WTO) case against the European Union's policies on genetically engineered (GE) foods at a meeting with US and EU officials tomorrow, as part of the official US-EU summit taking place in Washington, D.C., June 25, 2003.
Felix Cohen, head of the Netherlands consumer organisation Consumentenbond, said,
"Contrary to what we read in the US press, there is no ban or moratorium on GE foods in Europe. There has been a necessary delay in approvals of new GE products while new legislation is being put in place governing safety, formal pre-market approval, traceability and liability. In Europe, as in the US, it takes many years to pass and finalise legislation. Nations should be allowed the time to reach agreement on domestic food safety policy without being threatened with trade sanctions in the WTO.
"It is the US, not Europe, that is outside of the mainstream on this issue. By 2004, 35 countries representing half the world's population will require mandatory pre-market safety approval of GE products. Moreover, even if the US were successful in its suit, European consumers would not eat the stuff; you cannot force consumers to eat products they do not trust yet. The Bush administration's challenge in the WTO is an assault on every consumer's right to know about the food on their plates and to be assured of its safety."
Joan Claybrook, president of the US consumer organisation Public Citizen, said:
"The Bush administration's attempt to link Europe's GE policies with hunger in Africa is a calculated maneuver aimed at camouflaging the fact that this WTO case against Europe is about forcing more products from the agribusiness and biotech industries on an unwilling world. People in other nations need to know that the US government does not require mandatory safety reviews of GE foods, making administration claims that these foods have been proven safe highly misleading. Worse, as has been repeatedly said by African governments and academic experts, GE crops are not the answer to hunger in Africa and in fact could worsen existing problems, in part because all GE crops are subject to patent restrictions. This means that African farmers cannot save seeds from crop to crop for replanting without paying an annual fee to the biotech company who owns that plant variety. A far more effective way to help improve the agricultural economies of Africa would be for both the US and the EU to stop dumping subsidized agricultural products in Africa, a practice that is destroying local farmers and distorting local markets. It is noteworthy that Zambia, the only country to reject GE food aid and the country repeatedly noted by the Bush administration as the symbol of the dangers of refusing GE foods, solved its food crisis without relying on GE foods and will enjoy bumper crops this year.
"The clear goal of the US WTO suit is to frighten off other nations from developing their own GE regulatory structures - something a large number of nations are doing. African nations and other nations of the world are perfectly capable of making up their own minds on the issue of GE food aid and the domestic regulation of such products. They can look at the US and see that the biotech industry has done little for the hungry here and will do little for the hungry in Africa."
BACKGROUND
On May 14, 2003, the Bush administration announced that it would initiate action at the WTO against a delay in approvals by the EU of new genetically engineered foods. The delay has occurred because the EU is finalizing legislation on a new policy regarding traceability and labeling of GE foods and seeds. On June 19, 2003, the US announced that consultations with Europe at the WTO had broken down and that it was proceeding to request a formal WTO arbitration panel in the case.
The WTO case is against the EU, yet its target is significantly broader. There is growing concern in US industry about the number of other nations that are taking the precautionary approach to biotechnology and regulating this new technology for safety, traceability and labeling. Because WTO suits are extremely costly to defend and because plaintiffs almost always win WTO challenges, mere threats of challenges often result in the challenged country changing its policy.
In seeking to frame this WTO case for the press and public, the Bush administration has focused specific attention on Africa, claiming that the US WTO action was needed to protect the interests of Africa and those suffering from hunger there. President Bush and USTR Robert Zoellick have explicitly named the EU as responsible for questions raised about this new technology by African nations and for Zambia's decision to reject GE food aid during a recent food crisis.
The administration has failed to mention that Zambia, which rejected GE food aid for environmental reasons, has worked its way out of the crisis without relying on GE imports. In fact, the nation has doubled its crop of white maize this year, positioning itself as an exporter of crops in future years. Second, the administration has been engaged in a running fight with a bloc of African countries that, on their own initiative, sought international rules to regulate GE foods through the negotiation of a Biosafety Protocol. The Biosafety Protocol was completed in 2000 despite US administration attempts to undercut it. The Protocol went into effect this month after being ratified by 50 nations. The Protocol calls for the tracking of bulk GE commodities in global commerce and authorises nations to refuse shipments on environmental grounds.
The US-led coalition supporting the WTO case is already shaky. On May 28, 2003, Egypt withdrew its initial support of the GMO action at the WTO. Senior members of US Congress have responded by warning Egypt it was endangering the potential for the US to agree to negotiations of a US-Egypt Free Trade Agreement in the future.
Two recent incidents in the US involving new applications of genetic engineering have demonstrated the inadequacy of the current regulatory system to ensure safety of the food supply. In one incident, corn experimentally engineered to contain a pig flu vaccine contaminated a silo of soybeans worth $2.7 million. In the second, pigs that may have been experimentally engineered with growth hormone were sold as food without the government's knowledge or permission. Coming right after the 2000 StarLink contamination, when biotech corn approved only for animal feed made it into a variety of US food products, these events not only diminish public confidence in the efficacy of the US regulatory system, but also intensify consumer concerns about the safety of GE products.
Since its inception in 1998, the TACD has urged the US and EU governments to settle their difference by adopting an EU-type system for regulating GE products on both sides of the Atlantic and to refrain from challenging each other's environmental, public health and food safety policies in the WTO. The issue has consistently been one of the organisation's top priorities. The TACD is a forum of US and EU consumer organisations that develops and agrees to joint consumer policy recommendations for the US and EU governments. The TACD has a membership of some 65 consumer organisations in the US and Europe, including BEUC, Consumers Union, Public Citizen, Consumentenbond and the UK Consumers Association. Between them they have more than 20 million individual members. For more information, visit www.tacd.org.
* * * *Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue:
