US impatient with EU ban on GMOs, beef hormones
Date: 18-Dec-02
Country: EU
The two subjects have been an irritant to EU-U.S. trade relations for years and Washington has talked darkly of launching a case against the bloc at the World Trade Organisation over the ban on genetically modified (GM) foods.
"The moratorium (on new GM products) has been in place for four years. It is time to open the market," Aldonas told a news conference in Brussels, where he had been meeting officials from the European Commission on a range of trade and industry topics.
He reiterated that the administration of President George W. Bush was looking at the idea of a WTO case.
He said the Commission, which runs trade policy for the 15 EU states, was trying to bring about an end to the ban, such as promoting a law on labelling GM goods to reassure consumers.
But he said the real test for the Bush administration was whether U.S. goods would make it to European markets after the labelling law comes into effect.
The law is still being haggled over by the European Parliament and EU states and could come into effect next year.
The EU has not allowed any new GM goods to be imported or cultivated on its territory since 1998 due to consumer concerns over the safety of so-called "Frankenstein foods".
Washington says the ban is just as much about stopping U.S. products from competing with European ones.
In the beef hormone dispute, EU farm ministers on Monday widened its ban on certain growth-promoting hormones for cattle, citing scientific advice that they pose a risk to human health.
They hope this evidence will also convince the WTO that an EU ban on U.S. beef imports was on safety grounds rather than a trade barrier and ask the Geneva-based body to drop the $116.8 million of sanctions Washington was allowed to impose on EU goods each year.
"This is one other fibre in a fabric of protection of the EU market," Aldonas said of the EU decision.