Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 5 • Number 38 • 6th November 2001

EU Resists Biotech Discussion In SPS Committee


At the meeting of the WTO Committee on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) on 31 October to 1 November, the US and Canada strongly criticised Europe’s continued de facto moratorium on the approval of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), in place since 1998. The EU reacted evasively to the criticism, arguing that the matter should instead be discussed in the Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT).

Despite frantic preparations for this week’s WTO Ministerial Conference in Doha, Qatar (9-13 November), the SPS Committee meeting was well attended with all the major players as well as many developing countries and representatives from capitals present. According to one trade source, the SPS Agreement is rapidly becoming a "hot topic" as WTO Members are increasingly recognising the importance of SPS measures as a potential hidden trade barrier, in particular given the obligations under the Agreement on Agriculture to reduce other protective measures, such as export subsidies, tariffs and domestic support.

US, Canada try to force biotech discussion

In what one trade source described as a "non-goer", the issue of GMOs was placed on the agenda of the SPS Committee for the first time when the US requested discussions on the European Commission’s proposed labelling and traceability regulations (see BRIDGES Weekly, 31 July 2001) in the context of ‘non-trade concerns’. The EU, however, which had notified the proposed rules under the TBT Agreement, refused to enter into discussions, saying that the SPS Committee was not the appropriate forum and that the US should raise the matter in the TBT Committee which deals with questions of labelling. In a second attempt to force a discussion in the SPS Committee, the US — supported by Canada — again raised the issue under the agenda item ‘other business’. The two countries strongly criticised the EU for the delay in implementing the necessary approval procedures for GMOs which they said had resulted in a significant trade impact. For its part, the EU reacted angrily to the US strategy, pointing out that substantive discussions under this agenda item contravened normalprocedures and that they were not sufficiently prepared for a response.

As one trade source speculated, the EU, which has so far been reluctant to discuss the GMO issue at the WTO, is trying to restrict debates to the TBT Committee, as the TBT Agreement "doesn’t really have teeth to bite them". In addition, the EU might want to avoid challenges under the SPS Agreement in light of its loss in the beef-hormone case which the US had brought against the EU under this Agreement (see BRIDGES Weekly, 21 March 2000). However, the trade source also pointed out that the US would be free to invoke the SPS Agreement in a dispute and that the EU would find it difficult to justify that its proposed regulations do not fall within the scope of the Agreement.

Despite efforts by the European Commission to convince EU member states to lift the moratorium on GMO approvals, many EU member states have refused to do so until appropriate labelling and traceability regulations are in place. It will take at least another two years, however, until these regulations will enter into force (see BRIDGES Weekly, 30 October 2001; ).

Discussions on equivalency and transparency

In two informal meetings preceding the SPS Committee, Members discussed issues related to equivalence (ie mutual acceptance of another Member’s risk-minimising measures that may differ in process but have an equivalent effect under Article 4 of the SPS Agreement) and transparency of notifications. Discussions on equivalence were only short after the most contentious issues had already been resolved on 24 October with the adoption of document G/SPS/19 on the implementation of Article 4 (see BRIDGES Weekly, 30 October 2001). The document is available on line at http://docsonline.wto.org/gen_home.asp.On transparency, Brazil presented a paper suggesting that Members should be required to notify SPS measures if these were expected to have a significant trade impact. Some Members, however, argued that such a requirement would be unworkable since the impact was difficult to estimate in advance. Brazil furthermore requested that Members should not only notify their draft, but also their final measures. Brazil’s proposal has been included in Annex III of the draft Ministerial text (ie outstanding implementation issues to be discussed after Doha; available at http://www.ictsd.org/ministerial/doha/implementation26.09.01.pdf).The next meeting of the SPS Committee is currently scheduled for 20-21 March 2002, together with informal discussions on equivalence, transparency and technical assistance.

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