Canada and the United States have won a World Trade Organization ruling that the European Union’s refusal to import hormone-treated cattle is a violation of its WTO obligations.
But North American exporters should not expect European import doors to swing open immediately.
The EU can appeal. If it does not, the dispute resolution panel report is supposed to be adopted by the WTO appellate body within 60 days.
However, the history of this issue is a pattern of European delay and appeal in an international bureaucracy that offers many ways for foot-dragging.
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A senior American beef export official said last winter that win, lose or draw, North American beef won’t soon be on European supermarket shelves.
“Even if the EU was forced to open its border to beef from cattle treated with hormones, it wouldn’t sell to consumers,” U.S. Meat Export Federation official John Brook told the group’s annual meeting in Denver last January. “From surveys conducted, 68 to 82 percent of consumers in the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands say they would not purchase the beef if it were in the meat case.”
Still, the Canadian government was quick to claim victory March 31 when the panel report that has been circulating privately for months was made public in Geneva.
“The WTO has once again sided with Canada by confirming that the ban is inconsistent with the EU’s international trade obligations,” trade minister David Emerson said in a statement. “Canada continues to rely on the WTO rules-based system to defend its trade interests. We hope that the EU will lift its ban.”
The case dates back almost 20 years after the EU in 1989 imposed a ban on hormone-treated cattle, claiming a health risk.
Canada and the U.S. challenged the ban in 1996, arguing that the EU had not fulfilled its WTO obligation to scientifically prove the health risk. In 1997 and 1998, WTO panels agreed and Canada imposed sanctions worth $11.3 million against imports of European pork, cucumbers and gherkins.
In 2003, the EU reissued the ban, insisting it had changed enough to meet WTO requirements. It took Canada and the U.S. to the WTO because they would not lift their sanctions.
The latest judgment, while finding Canada guilty of some minor rule infractions, sided with the North American exporters on the bigger question.
It said that “in order to ensure the prompt settlement of this dispute, Canada should have recourse to the rules and procedures of the (dispute settlement system) without delay.”
