Reuters | October 21, 1999
WASHINGTON - John Richardson, deputy head of the European Commission's delegation in Washington was cited as saying the European Union will seek to "clarify" a key food safety agreement when dealing with the thorny issue of genetically modified (GM) crops in upcoming World Trade Organization talks, but he doubted the EU would call for the outright reopening of the landmark food safety agreement that was part of the 1994 Uruguay Round trade pact, adding, "Reopening? I think we'd call it clarification. The big issue is, do you build on exactly what's there or do you try to change what's there? And I think our approach would be to say 'we keep what we have and we build on it and we clarify it'."
The story notes that the United States opposes reopening the Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Agreement, which requires food safety and animal and plant health rules to be based on science.
The SPS pact provided the legal basis for the United States to successfully challenge the EU's 10-year-old ban on beef from cattle raised with artificial growth hormones.
In that case, the WTO ruled in favor of the United States and Canada and later authorized both countries to levy punitive duties on about $125 million worth of European goods after the EU refused to drop its ban.
Over the past two years, the United States has lost about $200 million of corn sales to Europe because of delays in the EU approval process for genetically modified crops.
Because of EU consumer concerns that have paralyzed the EU approval process, six GM varieties that account for a fraction of U.S. corn production remain banned in Europe.
That has had a chilling effect on all U.S. corn exports to the EU for fear that a small amount of an unapproved variety could show up in a cargo and be rejected by EU officials.
The United States has proposed four criteria for rules governing the approval of GM crops, but has not specified how it wants the issue raised in the WTO talks.
Tim Galvin, administrator of the U.S. Agriculture Department's Foreign Agricultural Service, was cited as telling the same trade audience a Canadian proposal to form a WTO working group on GM food appeared too broad to achieve much progress and that the United States will push for rules to require countries to establish a GM approval systems that are transparent, predictable, timely and science-based.
As the talks progress, the United States may offer more detailed suggestions, such as how long countries can take to make a decision on GM approvals.
