End Nearer for Ban on U.S. Poultry
Posted on: Wednesday, 14 May 2008, 06:00 CDT
By Stephen Castle
The end of a decade-long, Europe-wide ban on U.S. poultry imports moved a step closer Tuesday after the European Commission promised to put forward a formal proposal to lift the embargo.
Still, the concession, which was made during talks between the European Union and the United States, is likely to come with conditions and would require the approval of individual EU governments.
The ban was imposed in 1997 because of the common U.S. practice of cleaning chicken carcasses with a chlorine wash. The embargo has angered U.S. policy makers who say there is no evidence that the process is harmful to human health.
The issue featured prominently at the meeting Tuesday in Brussels of the Transatlantic Economic Council, a body set up last year with the aim of reducing economic barriers between the two trading blocs.
Daniel Price, who headed the U.S. delegation at the meeting, welcomed the announcement from the European Commission vice- president, Gunter Verheugen, and said the commission promised "to actively work with the member states and to exert its best efforts to lift this import ban by the time the TEC meets in October."
But an EU official briefed on the subject, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the draft proposal would only be for a two-year transitional period during which additional information would be requested from the U.S. officials.
Imported poultry would have to be washed with potable water after the process, and labeled as having been cleaned with chlorine, the official said.
The draft text is due to be considered by the EC on May 28 and, if approved, would then go to member states.
Price declined to comment on reports about conditions like the labeling requirement. "Obviously we don't want proposals that introduce trade restrictive elements," he said.
C. Boyden Gray, the U.S. special envoy on European affairs, estimated that the embargo cost U.S. producers about $200 million a year in lost sales.
That is a fraction of the euro 1.7 billion, or $2.6 billion, worth of trans-Atlantic trade flows daily, but, ahead of the meeting on Tuesday, Gray said lifting the ban had a wider symbolic importance.
The European Commission spokeswoman on health, Nina Papadoulaki, rejected American claims that some European producers use the same procedure to minimize the risk of salmonella contamination.
Originally published by The New York Times Media Group.
(c) 2008 International Herald Tribune. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.
Source: International Herald Tribune
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