Washington, DC
January 14, 2008
The
Office of the United States Trade Representative commented
on the January 11 expiration of the reasonable period of time
(RPT) for European Union (EU) compliance with the WTO rulings in
the EC-Biotech dispute.
“The United States remains very concerned with EU treatment of
agricultural biotech products,” said USTR Spokeswoman Gretchen
Hamel. “We are taking steps necessary under WTO rules to
preserve our right in the WTO to suspend trade concessions.”
“At the same time,” explained Hamel, “our goal is to normalize
trade in biotech products, not to impose trade sanctions on EU
goods. The EU has committed to making biotech approval decisions
based on science and without unnecessary delays, and it is in
both parties’ interest for the EU to follow through on these
commitments. Accordingly, we have agreed with the EU to suspend
for a limited period the proceedings on our WTO request for
authority to suspend concessions in order to provide the EU an
opportunity to demonstrate meaningful progress on the approval
of biotech products. We must note, however, that the United
States first turned to the WTO to resolve this dispute over four
and one half years ago, that U.S. seed companies, farmers, and
exporters continue to experience significant commercial losses
as a result of the EU actions, and that the patience of U.S.
stakeholders is close to exhaustion.”
During the coming months, the United States will periodically
evaluate EU progress toward normalizing trade against a set of
benchmarks and timelines. To a large extent, these performance
measures are set out in the EU’s own laws. If the United States
decides to pursue WTO proceedings on the EU’s compliance, the
United States would file a formal consultation request with the
EU, followed by a request for the establishment of a WTO
compliance panel.
In a related development, the Government of France announced
late Friday that it was imposing a ban on the planting of the
only biotech corn variety currently cultivated in the European
Union. “It is hard to overstate our disappointment with this new
biotech ban announced Friday by the Government of France,” said
Hamel. “This newly banned variety of corn has been grown safely
in the EU, the United States, and around the world for over a
decade. The WTO panel in the biotech case previously found that
a similar ban imposed by Austria was unsupported by scientific
evidence and inconsistent with WTO rules. We expect the European
Commission to move promptly to lift this unjustified ban, and
would hope that the Government of France would reconsider this
unwarranted action.”
Background:
On September 29, 2006, the WTO issued the final report in the
case brought by the United States, Argentina, and Canada against
the EU over the EU’s moratorium on approving agricultural
biotech products and over EU member State bans of
previously-approved products. The WTO found that the EU measures
were in breach of the EU’s obligations under the WTO Agreement
on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures. On
November 21, 2006, the WTO Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) adopted
recommendations and rulings calling for the EU to bring its
measures into compliance with WTO obligations. The United States
and the EU initially agreed to a one-year RPT for EU compliance,
which ended on November 21, 2006. The parties subsequently
agreed to extend the RPT until January 11, 2008. |
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