[PEN-L:33704] yet another stupid trade dispute

["Ian Murray" <seamus2001@xxxxxxxxx>]

washingtonpost.com
U.S. Hints It Will Sue EU Over Altered Crops
Complaint About Food Ban Would Go to WTO

By Justin Gillis and Paul Blustein
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, January 10, 2003; Page E01


U.S. Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick said yesterday that he
strongly supported filing an international trade case against the
European Union for its refusal to accept genetically modified food,
throwing down a gauntlet on one of the touchiest issues in relations
between the United States and Europe.

Zoellick's remarks, at a news conference in Washington, signaled that
the United States is likely to bring suit against European governments
in the World Trade Organization, perhaps within weeks. Such a suit, long
favored by American farm and corporate interests and by lawmakers on
Capitol Hill, would seek to overturn a moratorium on gene-altered
plants, such as corn and soybeans, that was adopted by European
governments four years ago during a consumer backlash against the crops.

A suit would be the Bush administration's strongest response to date to
anti-biotechnology sentiment in Europe, and experts on both sides of the
Atlantic regard the government's legal argument as compelling. "I tend
to think the U.S. government probably has a pretty good case," said John
H. Jackson, a specialist in international law at Georgetown University.

Yet there is concern in some quarters that a suit could stir up European
public opinion against the United States -- and possibly even set off a
wider trade war, prompting the European Union to impose sanctions in
unrelated trade battles. And it is far from clear that even a successful
legal case would open European markets to foods made with gene-altered
crops, because resistance among European consumers is perceived to be
overwhelming.

In essence, Zoellick would be arguing that anti-biotech rules in Europe
are a response to unreasonable public fears, not to meaningful
scientific research, and therefore represent trade discrimination
against U.S. agricultural products. He said yesterday that he was deeply
concerned that European resistance to the technology appears to be
influencing the trade policies of other nations, even of African
governments that have turned down genetically modified American grain
meant for starving people.

"I don't see things getting improved," Zoellick said. "Instead I see
something extremely disturbing: the European anti-scientific view
spreading to other parts of the world -- not letting Africans eat food
you and I eat, and instead letting people starve." He called this
"immoral" and described the European view of biotechnology as "Luddite,"
a reference to the English workers who smashed machines to save their
jobs at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

Zoellick's counterpart in the European Union, Pascal Lamy, told
reporters yesterday that the issue should be settled through negotiation
instead of litigation, adding that a trade suit would make finding a
solution "more complex."

But he added: "If there was to be litigation, of course we would fight
it, and I believe we would win it."

Genetically modified crops have become widespread in North America since
the mid-1990s, accounting for half or more of the U.S. and Canadian
acreage of some row crops. Generally, these plants have been altered in
ways that help them resist insects or weeds. Gene-altered corn, soybeans
and canola, or ingredients made from them, appear in a large majority of
the products on American grocery shelves.

Though environmental groups oppose the crops, and some controversy
lingers in this country, the Agriculture Department, the Food and Drug
Administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency have declared
the existing crops safe for human consumption and safe for the
environment. American companies are working on many new varieties of
gene-altered plants, including some that promise improved nutrition.

The situation in Europe is different. A series of food disasters there,
involving problems such as "mad cow" disease being passed to humans
through food, was followed in the late 1990s by a fierce controversy
over genetic manipulation of crops. Nearly every European government
adopted labeling laws and imposed moratoriums on the crops, costing U.S.
farmers at least $300 million a year in export revenue.

U.S. interests contend that the European crackdown is not based on
legitimate scientific concerns, as it must be under World Trade
Organization rules, but simply on public fear. While acknowledging that
they will never be able to force European consumers to buy foods they
don't want, some American companies want to test whether consumer
resistance across the Atlantic is really as strong as perceived.

"Biotech companies would be happy to have their products put to that
kind of test," said Val Giddings, vice president of food and agriculture
for the Biotechnology Industry Organization, a trade group in
Washington. "Get trade barriers out of the way and see what consumers
really do."