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The United States announced last week that it was filing a WTO complaint against a long-running European Union ban on imports of chemically treated poultry. For more than a decade, Brussels has barred the import of chicken treated with anti-bacterial chemicals such as chlorine dioxide, a practice that the US contends is safe and effective.
The latest request for consultations comes one day after the outgoing Bush Administration announced changes to retaliatory trade sanctions relating to the EU’s ban on hormone-treated beef, further increasing pressure on Brussels to resolve the long-standing agricultural disputes (see related article, this issue).
“The poultry treatments at issue have been widely and safely used in the United States for many years” then-US Trade Representative Susan Schwab said in the announcement. “We have tried to address this issue through dialogue with the EU for more than eleven years, and neither the European Commission nor EU Member States have offered any legitimate, science-based reason for continuing to block our poultry.”
Brussels prohibits the import of poultry treated with any substance other than water unless that substance has been approved by the EU. But the US alleges that the EU has not published or otherwise made available the process it uses to approve a substance. Washington also alleges that Brussels has not approved the use of four pathogen-reducing chemicals in the nearly seven years since Washington’s formal request for approval in 2002, to the frustration of US industry leaders.
“The EU’s ban has no scientific basis,” said Shaun Donnelly, a Senior Director at the US trade group National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). “US poultry has been thoroughly tested and judged to be safe for consumers and for the environment by both US and European food safety authorities.”
For its part, though, the EU expressed its assurance that the ban is justified. “We regret the US decision to resort to WTO dispute settlement on this issue,” said Peter Power, an EU spokesperson. Power denied that the ban specifically discriminates against US imports: “we apply our regulatory measures to both domestic and imported goods alike,” he said. “We will carefully study the US claims and will engage in consultations in good faith,” Power said.
Washington’s decision to file the complaint was hailed by the US poultry industry, which has been battered during the recent economic crisis as prices for both chicken and feed have fluctuated greatly. US poultry exports have greatly expanded since the EU ban took effect in 1997 and the industry is looking to continue its growth by accessing the EU market. Current exports stand at roughly 16 percent of production.
Under WTO rules, Washington and Brussels will have 60 days to hold formal consultations. If the parties fail to reach a resolution by the end of that period, the complainants may ask a WTO dispute settlement panel to consider the case.
ICTSD reporting; “US poultry industry cheers WTO flap with EU,” WALL STREET JOURNAL, 16 January 2009; “US challenges EU’s ban on poultry imports at WTO,” BLOOMBERG, 16 January 2009.
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